Darkness
by MouseyL
Summary: Sequel to Lost As Elliot loses what little he has gained, he is still searching for her.
1. Hopeless

_So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence. - Henry Longfellow_

The house is calm and quiet as he walks in and shuts the door, and it feels both no time at all and years since he left to face a tortuous hell. He keeps getting flashes even as he tries to focus on the present, of Olivia's face, and Hartman's, and the pain of his loss then and now. There is still the numbness, the familiarity of his five years of grief and uncertainty, but also the burning sting of a scab ripped off and acid poured in. Time is twisting within him, and he wonders how it can be so long since she went missing, but so recently that he walked out to try and discover her fate.

He leans on the back of the front door, hearing long known creaks and groans as Kathy walks towards him, the floor charting her progress. She says nothing when she reaches him, simply resting a hand on his shoulder until he looks her in the eye and and sees nothing but sorrow and love within them. He has no words or explanation for her and she knows it.

"Come and have some breakfast. Or coffee," she adds, as his face screws up like a child's at the thought of food, "Eli wouldn't eat his until you came home." They walk into the kitchen, Kathy leading him in, and Elliot finds not only Eli but Maureen sitting at the table as well. He wonders how it can be only a day ago that he watched them play in the backyard, how free they were then. How sad she looks now.

"Hi Dad," she says, and stands, giving him a hug he hardly feels within his exhaustion. When he stays silent, not even lifting his hands to return her comfort, she sits back down and flicks another page of the magazine in front of her, movements relaxed, unforced.

"Why?" Elliot is just about able to ask, gesturing at Eli who is also sitting at the table, winding up a toy car and causing it to crash into various things scattered across the surface. He knows his youngest son should be in school, but Kathy intervenes before he can even speak.

"He was pretty unsettled last night so I let him stay off today. He was tired."

Tired, he thinks. He knows what that feels. Weary to his bones, the ache for a relief that will not come, even in the losing of himself to darkness. He's surprised to find he has shut his eyes at the word, and it feels comfortable. Easy. Too easy. He opens them again, and nothing has changed, not even the look of his wife and the sound of his children. "I'm pretty tired myself."

"Of course," Kathy gives the smile of grief that is so familiar but doesn't move towards him, seeming to recognise that he wants no more pointless gestures. He thinks for a second that perhaps she finally knows him after all these years, that it has taken his destruction for her to be able to get through. Perhaps only now he is letting her through. It is Maureen that moves at his words, standing up and coming onto tiptoe beside him to kiss his forehead like a small child. He turns away. He cannot bear to see her sorrow.

Eli is busy still, busy being a small boy, and Elliot doesn't break the spell as he walks past, just ruffling his hair instead. That is enough. The stairs sigh as he walks up them to a quiet salvation that might come today, sleeping in the light while the rest of the world lives. It's easy to hope for as he slips his shoes off and lies down without undressing further. He closes his eyes and listens to his heartbeat slow, his mind shutting down, either despite him or because of him. He doesn't want to sleep, to let go and yet he needs to so much he does not dare fight it. The last image he sees is hers, smiling back at him.

_A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist._  
-_Steward Alsop_

"El......El."

He is woken by the sound of a voice, and for a second his dreams and reality mix. It is her speaking his name and his heart leaps in confusion. It comes again and he sinks when he realises he is wrong, and Kathy is shaking his shoulder. Rolling over, blinking slightly at the afternoon light, he is about to ask her why she has woken him when he feels his sticky eyes and wet cheeks, tears stained down them in sleep. He wipes an arm across with one brusque moment, before hauling himself up to sit, and his body aches.

"It was bad then." Her comment is a statement, not a question and he wants to get angry at her for voicing the obvious, before recognising her attempt at....at what? Comfort? There will be no comfort today, with uncertainty regaining control over his life. Solace? Perhaps. Perhaps she simply wants to know. He forgets too often that she cares too.

"Yeah, you could say that," he says, swinging his legs off the bed and testing them out, strangely proud that they hold him, "I'm going to grab a shower." He knows she deserves more than that, but with the salt still resting on his skin, he has no words.

The water washes the dried tears off his face but does nothing more, either to wake him from the numbness that has settled since walking in through the door, or to making him feel different. Better. Stronger He is coated in grief, his skin has been stripped from him and replaced with a shroud of ache and pain and bitter agony that cracks and tears as he dares to breathe. He pauses for a minute in front of the steamed bathroom mirror but cannot bear to sweep away the condensation and see himself. He's scared of how broken he will be, how little life remains within his eyes.

Stepping out just wrapped in a towel, he isn't surprised to see Kathy still sitting on the bed, picking at threads on the cover. He doesn't say anything but dresses in old, worn clothes that fit him as if nothing has changed, then sits down beside her with a sigh. They don't speak for lingering heartbeats, until the sun has moved slightly across the room and she rests a hand on his leg. "What happened?"

He stumbles over his words, and it takes him a few breaths and starts to be able to get the words out, and when he does his voice sounds foreign, broken, "It was the man. The suspect they found, he confessed to the rapes that we had the DNA on," he takes a deep gasp before continuing, "they couldn't get him for Olivia though," and as he says her name he cracks. Failure floods him, suffocating his thoughts and his brain at the knowledge that there was still no justice found.

Head hanging, he can see Kathy squeeze his leg but feels nothing. "He'll go to arraignment today. But it's over...." and a sob creeps from his throat, "it's over." But it isn't over, how can it be, its spinning and never-ending and blurred in its dizzying force. It's choking him, smothering him and something with that much force can't just end. Distantly, he hears an echo of the cries of grief he had expelled hours ago, when the wave hit, and he knows that he is crying again, exhausted but so full of pain he cannot hold it in.

Kathy's arms grip him and he falls, leaning into her and depending on her in a way he never has before, and she is the smell of years together, of children and home and companionship. It soothes, as rocking and a blanket soothe a baby, and his cries subside. He knows that this is the first time he has shown his grief to her, shown something of the extent of his agony in losing Olivia, but he doesn't care. He's past that.

There is a quiet hum that falls around them as he calms. It's the future settling, diluted loss and desperate longing and familiar, nagging questions with no answers. Kathy knows as well, her sigh shows she does, but it isn't a sigh of despair, just of resignation.

The sound of a phone breaks the silence, and she gives him one last touch of comfort before she reaches for it, and he steels himself for the rest of his life, for his son waiting downstairs, for the hours and days and years that he already knows. But then Kathy is handing him the phone, and it is her voice that sounds wrong as she says, "It's Don. He says it's important."

He notices his hand is shaking as he reaches for the phone and he wonders why. Nothing can devastate him more than today, nothing can hurt more than trying to ease himself back into a life without her, a life of watching and waiting and bitter, slim hope. But when he says "hello" with a question in the word, he sounds almost normal, whatever that is.

"I've got bad news," Don is worryingly calm, but Elliot can do nothing but wonder what news can have occurred that would be considered bad in the grand scheme of the last hours, "Hartman skipped bail."

That news then.

"What?" He heard but he needs it repeated, needs the time to dissolve the information, and he doesn't concentrate as Don says it again. "How? How did he get bail in the first place?"

"He had a good lawyer, paid for by his grandmother. The judge set bail at $500,000. No one thought he'd make it."

"And now he's gone?" There is disbelief in Elliot's voice but he doesn't know why he should feel that. Everything is so surreal that he should have expected it, planned it, realised that his pain should be set to continue, and the longest odds should come true.

"Yeah, the grandmother came up with it. He was supposed to be staying with her but he skipped town almost as soon as he was released. They were tailing him but he lost them."

The information should scald, should release fire within him and make him want to burn with injustice, with anger, with pain and noise and fury but it doesn't. Instead it sinks slowly, dropping until it rests quietly inside his skin. Don is quiet on the other end of the phone.

"Guess that's it then."

"They're looking for him, El. Maybe..."

Elliot cannot help but snort. Maybe what? Maybe they'll catch him again and he still won't speak. Maybe he will. Maybe he's vanished into the fog and they'll never even get a glimpse as they stumble through their lives. Maybe she's living, maybe she's dead. Maybe is a million things and nothing at all, and Don knows it.

"Thanks for calling, Don. I'll see you soon." It's a promise he strangely doesn't want to keep, though he knows Kathy will make him, and it will help. She's still there as he hears Don hang up, and takes the handset from him.

"He's gone?" She asks, already knowing the answer, but he still nods. Gone. Like her. Gone. Exhaustion hits him like a train despite his sleep, and closing his eyes feels like giving up on her all over again. He had her within his grasp, all he had to do was close his fist, but now there is nothing, she's drifted away. His chance was fleeting, and he didn't take it, and he's left clutching ghosts. A ghost.

As night falls over them, he stays within the bedroom, hearing the sounds of home and life beneath him, glimpsing real people as they come to say goodnight, and then he is staring at the ceiling and watching shadows dance, too tired to sleep, waiting for it all to end.


	2. Lifeless

"_Put my guns in the ground, I can't shoot them any more, that cold black cloud is comin' down, feels like I'm knockin' on heaven's door" Guns 'n Roses – Knockin' On Heaven's Door_

Months go by, and he feels less than himself in each second of every day. Small things remind him he is still alive; when he is so distracted he runs a stop sign and he watches as a car comes towards him before swerving violently, the man driving leaning out and swearing. He pulls to the side of the road and relishes his heart beating wildly in his chest, but it fades, like everything else.

At the firing range he stares down at the gun when it's fully loaded, at what he holds in his hand, and for a brief second while nobody watches, he takes the safety off and points it under his chin, before feeling the fear and placing it carefully down. When he steps back, closing his eyes, he is unsure whether he is afraid that he will, or that he won't. He doesn't dare go too often.

The dreams have stopped, of her, of anything, and sleep is too often a solace he hides in. He works, but on the days he doesn't he often won't get out of bed till mid afternoon. It's warm and safe beneath the covers, a storm rages outside and only by closing his eyes can he survive it. When he thinks about it all, about those around him and the glimpses he catches of the damage he is doing, it kills him inside, but he is already so numb it cannot make a difference. He drags himself to the basement, to the gym equipment there, and works out so hard his muscles tremble as he finishes and it is all he can do to walk up the stairs again. This is the cycle of days, dawn and dusk, sleep and exhaustion and always a search for a life or a death that never comes.

On the days he cannot get up, Eli comes into the bedroom after school and does his homework with him, tucked under the covers. Sometimes Kathy will come and they pretend happy families, like it is normal that a grown man doesn't get up, doesn't shave, doesn't leave his bedroom. She'll bring dinner up, popcorn, and they watch movies until Eli falls asleep between the two of them and he carries him to his own bed, the only time he might have ventured further than the bathroom that day.

There are some good days. One morning the sun shines so brightly through a gap in the curtains that he cannot turn away, cannot ignore its call, and it scares him how surprised they are when he isn't working but still makes it downstairs before midday. He is grappled into a bear hug by Eli and dragged outside willingly, and he pushes aside the amazement in his youngest son's eyes. They spend a whole day being father and son, a whole twelve hours of sport and laughter and an impromptu barbecue that all the children come home for, so overjoyed are they that they have their father back.

He sits on the porch and watches as shadows creep towards them and the kids battle against the night to play softball, and it feels like every minute someone will throw him a glance, to make sure he is still there. The air is warm, thick and heady, he's drunk just by breathing and he hasn't had a taste of this in weeks. There is a beer in his hand and it's not necessary tonight, but it's part of what this should be so he holds and drinks. As they scream with laughter because none of them can see, Kathy comes and stands behind him, resting a hand on his shoulder and dropping a kiss on the top of his head.

"This is what matters Elliot. They'll remember this night forever." And for a while he can kid himself that they will remember it for the right reasons, for it just being perfect instead of for how out of the ordinary it is now, such a normal day. How he was alive, and with them. He tries to clutch at what a gift it is, that he is here and the phone will not interrupt and the pain of the world is nothing to do with him here.

Lizzie comes and sits at his feet, breathing heavily from running, and he can see her red cheeks even in the dusk. She settles herself against his legs and for a minute, as she rests, he can feel her heartbeat reverberating through his bones as she leans back and tips her head to look at him upside-down. It's so easy, he thinks, to be here and watch his flesh and blood live, to hear their voices reach up to the sky and bring down the stars with them. Then it is pitch black and they are straggling in up the steps, Eli so exhausted that Dickie carries him back despite his age and dumps him on Kathy's lap where he seems to fall asleep within seconds. Now all of them sit, and there is no longer faint birdsong of dusk, just the silence of a suburb that is never quiet and the sound of another day ending.

He wants to hold onto it forever, but Eli breaks the spell with a childish snore that makes everyone giggle and begin to stand up. "Love you Dad," always comes at the end of a day, not just a day like this, and perhaps it means less to hear it now than when they come into the dark and musty room where he has stayed all day and say it. When, even though he has let them down in more ways than he can list, they still love him. But there, that night, there is none of the sadness behind the words, none of the 'I love you despite this' that he hears all the other times. That night, he feels normal.

He doesn't tell anyone that every morning as the sun rises and he feels the world start again, he imagines where Hartman is. How that man is free and he is not. How none of them are. In those few minutes, he relinquishes all blame, all selfish guilt for the hurt and the pain he causes, and the mistakes he has made, and places them all on him. It is a beautiful relief to let it wash away, to kid himself that he isn't causing any of it, that it all comes from Hartman and Olivia's disappearance, that he holds no responsibility himself. Of course it never lasts, his own decisions break through and it is that, the knowledge of what he has done or not done that causes him to roll over and hide from the world. It's easier that way, and he knows he is a coward, he hates himself for it, and the hatred simply kills him more.

And so they go on, without her, and almost without him.

It's three days before Christmas and he's cold when the phone interrupts his sleep. Kathy has curled into the covers and one foot dangles out over his edge of the bed, stopping him from sleeping, but he cannot muster the effort to act. Glancing quickly at the bright numbers in the darkness, he wonders who can be calling him at such a time. He doesn't do the late night summons any more, dragging himself out of the warmth to some scene of destruction, and now a call this late can only be bad news.

It's a number he doesn't recognise and for a second he considers not answering, staving off the sickeningly feeling he is carrying at the thought of it being one of those calls, the calls you never forget that end in a rush to a hospital and the sound of a doctor or cop telling you the worst. He can halt that, can make whatever has happened not occur, just by not answering the phone, but it sounds again and he looks at his sleeping, peaceful wife before answering in fearful trepidation.

"Stabler." There is nothing but silence on the other end, and he waits for seconds before pulling it away from his ear to check it is still connected. "Hello?" Now he can hear breathing, a soft shiver of air, though at first he isn't sure whether it is just his, or Kathy's beside him. But when he speaks for the third time, he realises there is someone on the other end, and he's getting annoyed as his heart settles from its fear, though there remains a nagging uneasiness in the back of his mind. "Who's there?"

He is just about to hang up when he hears it.

"El," and with one word, everything around him changes.


	3. Breathless

**A/N: Please bear in mind as you read this that I am English, have visited NYC once about ten years ago, and have never been in the surrounding area. Also, things are often done slightly differently here so if there are any errors, it's probably due to that!**

* * *

"_You don't need many words to leave me breathless, only one off your tongue, the sweet sound that calms the aching in my soul" - Forgotten Love by Etro Anime_

"Liv?"

He sits bolt upright as he says her name, muscles tensing and the hairs across his body prickling. He has heard her voice a thousand, a million times, remembering and wishing, and this has to be another dream. He cannot dare to hope it is real. Icy terror runs through him as he waits for a reply, fearful that the person on the other end will say no, he's got the wrong person, he's guessed wrong and the illusion is destroyed. But then she speaks again,

"El." And it's her. He's sure. His mind stops working for a second, too many thoughts and emotions flooding his brain and he reaches for Kathy blindly, shaking her shoulder to wake her.

"Olivia. Are you okay? Where are you?" His voice is quivering with a flood of adrenaline and emotion, and he cannot work out what to do first, what to ask or how to act. All he knows is that she is on the other end of the phone, she is alive, and he has to find her. He can't lose her again. He will never survive.

"I don't know where I am. He just left me. I've been walking." The bewilderment in her voice matches the expression on Kathy's face as he mouths for her to call 911 and tell them he's got her on the line and they need to get SVU and T.A.R.U. That he needs a trace.

"What can you see Olivia? Is there anyone there you can ask for help?" Kathy has turned the light on, but all his focus is on the phone and there is nothing around him but her, an image of her face when he last saw her.

"No. I'm at a gas station, but its closed. There's nothing here." As he gets more used to hearing her again, he can tell she is cold, even though she is speaking quietly. There is a shiver there and her jaw sounds locked as she tries to speak without her teeth crashing together. He matches her tension with adrenaline fuelled anxiety that is taking over his thoughts.

"Okay, we're going to find you okay? We're going to come and get you. I promise. It will be okay, just stay talking to me." It's a frantic rush of words and attempted reassurance, and he wonders who the promises are really for, him or her.

"I'm going to get cut off. He only gave me a couple of quarters," and when her words sink in they chill him, not just the information but the faint defeat in her tone. Suddenly he feels ice run through every cell of his body.

"If you get cut off, call me collect. Or call 911. It's going to be okay," but even as he speaks he hears a silence that tells him she is gone, and the dial tone kicks in loudly.

Staring at his cell, he pleads with her to call collect, but at the same time knowing that she won't. She sounded in shock, confused and lost, and it's the first inkling in the back of his mind that she is not the person he knew, but he pushes it away. He has to find her first.

Returning the call, he gets out of bed and paces as the payphone rings and rings with no answer until he cannot bear its sound any more, harsh, abrupt and taunting him as it repeats. Kathy is still speaking beside him and he gestures for the phone, which she hands over without another word.

"Who is this?" he asks gruffly, and someone on the other end tells him that they have got into contact with both the SVU squad and T.A.R.U. It should come as a relief, that things are happening, but all he can think is that she is out there somewhere, cold and alone, and he doesn't know where. Somehow, the knowledge feels worse in that moment than all the years of wondering, and the need to be with her is so intense it is making it hard to breathe.

He's utterly lost in thought as he gets dressed and it takes him two attempts to put a polo shirt on the right way round, the first time panicking as the collar seems to strangle him.

Finally, taking what feels like an age but is really only about a minute, he is dressed and he's aware Kathy has already left the room. Grabbing his cell, he leaves at a run, and as he takes the stairs two at a time, using instinct in the dark, he can see her shadowed figure at the bottom of the stairs. She is still just in a gown, a ghost in the night holding out both his coat and car keys to him without a word. He doesn't even stop to kiss her, and as he gets into the car his mind is already long gone from home, instead calling Don as he waits for the wind-shield to clear of frost impatiently, cursing the faint dusting of ice.

Don's voice is blurred with sleep but sharpens immediately as Elliot quickly fills him in, and by the time he can see enough to drive, Don is already getting dressed, phone in one hand as he confirms he will be at the precinct as soon as possible.

As Elliot drives into the city, the night peacefully silent with moonlight glittering off the sugaring of ice, she consumes his mind, images of her cold and lost somewhere so clear they press down on his chest. By the time he skids to a halt outside the precinct and runs in, he is choking on his fear, and he can't even wait for the elevator, instead taking the flights of stairs as if they were nothing, as fast as he had leapt down his own at home.

Bursting into the room, he is relieved to see lights on and calling him in, movement already occurring, and there is a T.A.R.U tech setting up at one of the desks. Capt. Price appears at his side as he hands over his cell phone and the man looks at his call history quickly.

"That's an NY code", he says, typing something into his laptop and picking up his own phone. While he punches a number in and waits for someone to answer, he hands Elliot's cell back to him.

"Call the number again," And Elliot does so, desperately listening to the faint ringing on the other end and wondering whether she's still there, whether she can hear it as well. All he can think as they wait is that she's so close, so close to him he heard her whisper, and yet now so far away. They stay still for a minute, Elliot willing her to answer, and then the tech gestures for him to hang up.

"I've got the approximate location, but we'll have to wait for the phone company to get back to us with exactly where it is. I've narrowed you down to a general area though."

Elliot is about to scream, to shout and argue that approximations are not good enough, they need to find her now, but even as Capt. Price's hand rests on his arm to calm him, he hears movement.

"Is it enough to get us close to her?" And never has Elliot been more glad to hear Fin's voice. Turning, he sees him standing with his partner, Paul Thomas, and it is a blissful relief to have someone who can understand. Someone who can have some idea what this means, what mixture of fear and utter joy he is carrying. Capt. Price says,

"We'll start driving up there now, and call the local guys. They can start checking payphones and gas stations while we wait for more information."

The knowledge that they are acting and getting closer to her every second softens the raw, biting anxiety he is battling, but there is still heavy tension in the air, thickening each inhale. As they go to leave, Don comes through the door hurriedly, and his expression is almost unreadable as he looks at Elliot.

"We're going," Elliot says and when Don flicks a glance over Elliot's shoulder, searching for confirmation, he feels rather than sees Capt. Price nod.

"Fin and I will take one car. You, Stabler and Thomas take another. We're heading up to the area around Orange County. They'll call me when they get a precise location." Her control, her calm authority is a relief, as is Don by his side as they head out into the smooth darkness.

Never had he been so glad to watch the city disappear behind them, or to sit in the back seat and hand decisions to someone else. Watching as the red light of their squad care throws circles around them as they drive, he can focus on no details, just letting the world drift past in. The only thing he hears is the occasional word from Don, and her voice saying his name over and over again, catching slightly every time.

He keeps looking at his cell and when the tension gets too much, the ache unbearable, he calls the payphone again, holding his breath as he waits for an answer he will not get. He has to keep trying though, to ease the breathless grip of his lungs and heart, and rarely have seconds ever felt so long as when the ring resounds through him.

Finally, over an hour out of the city, they stop at a local police station which has lights blazing from it and activity all around. There are three local squad cars there, and Fin and the Captain have arrived ahead of them.

They all get out, going towards the group of people, and Paul is handed a map by Capt. Price. Elliot has only ever seen her in a sharp suit and now she has an NYPD jacket hanging loosely over her clothes, she looks even more like she means business, despite her hair swept back in a style more suited to a dignified lawyer. He shrugs an identical jacket on as if it had been only hours or days, not years since he has worn one, and it feels like coming home.

"You're going to take this route, the payphone and gas station locations are marked," she indicates on the map Paul is holding, and Elliot glances down to see the highlighted areas. He know he won't be driving, he couldn't cope with it, and so the colours don't matter. All that does is that somewhere, maybe, on one of those roads is Olivia.

For a brief second, he notices that the map seems to be shaking in Paul's hands, and when he looks at the other man's face, fierce concentration is apparent. He wonders what it must be like, for those who don't know her but are officially involved. Those who are searching for her as a job, with them waiting beside as loved ones who will collapse and shatter if he fails.

It doesn't take long for them to get going, and the cars peal off in different directions, their lights soon fading away. As they drive, he watches nothing but the moonlight harshly catching the ice on the road, and he is unable to stop hearing her. He wonders what dawn will find as it rises, and what state Olivia is going to be in when it falls over them.

They've checked out two marked spots, invading the darkness with the fierce, glaring headlights of their cars with no luck when Paul's radio goes, and he slows the car down slightly to answer the prompt.

"We've got the location of the payphone, it's on your route," the disconnected voice says, and as the precise details given, Paul glances down at the map, to where Don is pointing, and then replies,

"Copy that. It's about 5 miles north of us on this road," and even before he is finishing speaking, his foot is hitting the gas and they're speeding up. Elliot can see the muscles locked hard as stone in Paul's jaw and forearm as he drives, and he knows his own are doing the same.

It is barely bearable, watching the headlights sweep the road as if he is a kid, waiting to get to a longed for location, except this time it is fear instead of excitement almost smothering him, adrenaline the only thing keeping it contained. They skid twice on ice, the back end of the car kicking sideways, and Elliot thinks of not finding her. Of her coming back to discover he has let her down, stolen in his desperation to find her, and with those thoughts frost falls suddenly from a tree overhead as they speed along. He thinks he's being laughed at.

He sees the illuminated light of the gas station before the car's lights hit the building, and as they sweep to a halt with a scream of rubber, he can barely believe that this is going to be the moment. His eyes scan the surroundings, and then, it's over.

She's there.


	4. Bloodless

She's sitting on the ground, knees up to her chest and leaning sideways against the base of the payphone, eyes closed and still. Her skin is pale, whiter than he could ever imagine and the blue fluorescent sign casting light from above the gas station makes her look frozen. Dead.

As he gets out and takes her in, the shock is so extreme that he cannot move, solid as stone, and Don has taken a couple of steps towards her before he is able to react. But then he feels the cop within him take over, he is going faster than he ever thought he could and calling her name as he drops to his knees beside her. He expects her to feel like stone as he touches her hand, and her skin is chilled against his, but there is no doubt she is real, real and alive.

"Liv...Liv..." He murmurs her name as he squeezes her hand and then goes to shake her shoulder, trying to get her to open her eyes. Her lips move and she mumbles something he cannot decipher, the words coming out as mist before her mouth, and he shakes harder, speaks louder.

"A bus is coming," Don says beside him, and Elliot strips off his jacket and leans her forward, wrapping it round her shoulders and pulling her close. It's only then, as he moves her, that he sees she has nothing on her feet and they really are blue with cold, traces of smeared blood covering the tops of them. He gestures to Don without words, he's still whispering her name to her even as he settles her against him, and Don takes his coat off as well and drapes it across her feet. He knows the blood might not be hers, there might be forensics, but he doesn't care.

The ground is frozen beneath him, stealing warmth he needs to give to her, and the sharp air brings goosebumps across his skin. He is vaguely aware of other lights, other voices around him, and he can pick out Fin in the noise as he comes closer. Everything is muted though, subdued, and he can't tell whether they sound distant because they're talking quietly, or whether it's because he is trying to hear each breath she takes.

As he holds her, waiting for help with Don crouching silent beside them, he still thinks that it must be a dream, that he will wake from this to unbearable disappointment and tears drifting paths down his face. He cannot be with her, it cannot be true, because things like this don't happen. People don't come back. But her weight is leant against him, his warmth wrapped round her, and she's real. He glances down at her again, and wonders how she can be alive and so pale. She's colourless, seemingly drained of blood, and yet her heart beats under her skin.

The bus arrives sooner than he expects but the time has still felt an endless torture, and every second he has whispered her name in silent prayer. If anyone is out there. When it pulls up, he has her in his arms and is carrying her towards the help before they have even stopped, and climbs up with her into the back before lying her down gently and stepping back as both EMTs start their work.

"She's hypothermic" one says, "but she seems stable," as her heartbeat shows up on a monitor, and the other goes forward and starts the bus up, turning lights and sirens on as they pull away.

Now there is an oxygen mask over her face, an IV in her arm with fluids dripping, and Elliot will never be able to describe the relief he feels at the sight of each heartbeat, his own sounding in reply. As the EMT pulls down a silver survival blanket and spreads it across her, leaving just her feet out as he looks at them, checking the injuries, Elliot leans forwards and strokes her head, brushing the hair away from her face. It's longer that the last time he saw her, darker, and tangles within his fingers so he is bound to her by single strands.

She doesn't react to his touch, and he's feeling a strange mixture of incredible fear and relief. She's in front of him, he is with her, but she isn't out of the woods and he knows this is just the beginning. Even a brief thought of what she has been through threatens to overwhelm him with panic and grief, so he pushes it to one side and starts repeating her name again. It's a mantra, and it's keeping them both alive. Unbroken.

When they arrive at the hospital people are already waiting for her, and he is left behind in a muddle of medical words and calm speed as she vanishes through doors. He stands, feeling stunned and trying desperately to make sense of all the thoughts going through his head, as someone comes behind him and he looks to see Don.

"How is she?" And at the question, Elliot feels the reduction of adrenaline within him and the hours start to hit. He is forced to sit down before saying,

"Alive. Hypothermic but stable. That's all they said really."

Don sits down beside him, and he's the epitome of calm authority of old as he replies.

"They've got dogs out, trying to trace her walk, and there is an APB out on Hartman. Detective Tarpley is coming from the city to talk to Liv. They thought she might...she might not want to talk to a man."

Elliot remembers the woman from the day so many months ago, while they had sat and waited for no news to come, for Hartman to be captured and then lost again so quickly, and all that stands out is her bluntness. He hopes she is gentler with victims that she had been with him, and as he does so it hits him for the first time. She is now the victim. Olivia, a victim. They have got her back but not as theirs, as a case and a media sensation and a person who has been through years of god knows what. A wave of nausea takes over and he is leaning over the nearest trash-can before he can even comprehend what is happening.

The vomiting seems to go on forever, vicious bile burning but he finally gets control of his stomach just as his knees begin to wobble and he is forced to collapse down into the nearest chair. A bottle of mineral water waves in front of his eyes and he takes it. When he looks up, he is surprised to see, not Don, but Paul looking concerned at him.

"You alright?" And Elliot nods, wondering how many times those words will be spoken, and how true the answers will be.

"Just waiting for news." He says, and Paul sits across from him, explaining the others are starting the hunt for Hartman before falling quiet. When Elliot glances over, he is surprised at how shell-shocked the detective looks, eyes gazing at nothing, and he thinks again what this night is from the other side. Wondering how real it feels to him. He's still not sure whether it is.

They wait in silence, a clock tauntingly calling the seconds, and he has time to call Kathy and let her know that Olivia is alive and in hospital, and overhear the conversation as Don calls John, imagining John's words at the other end. Other than those phonecalls, there is nothing to say, and he takes sips of water, trying to kill the bittersweet taste of finding her.

There is a fake christmas tree in the corner of their waiting room, and he watches the flickering lights, as captivated as a child but not really seeing. Flashes of her keep haunting him, frozen and still beneath his touch, with light staining her skin blue. She's not alive, even those he has felt her heartbeat, and watched faint breath drift from her lips. It all feels impossible.

Finally a doctor comes out and the three men stand in unison, watching his face desperately for news.

"How is she?" Elliot asks, his voice cracking with fear.

"As well as can be expected." And Elliot knows he must be flushing with impatience and annoyance at the nondescript words from the doctor, although they are issued with compassion. "She came in hypothermic but she's warming up nicely, and is starting to come round. She is also dehydrated, and had some minor cuts and scrapes to her feet. I'd say she's walked for a good few hours before finding help."

"Has she said anything?" It's Paul asking and Elliot wonders whether he wants to know for personal reasons, or for cop ones. He is struck with an urge to hit him for asking, he has nothing to do with her personally, and being a detective doesn't matter yet.

"Not much," the doctor shakes his head, "she's drifting in and out. We anticipate a significant amount of shock as well, given the circumstances." Circumstances, Elliot thinks. Such a polite way of phrasing hell.

"Can we see her," It's all he wants to do now, desperation controlling him, but the doctor looks sternly at him before answering.

"As a friend only. No questions, no interrogation until she's been seen for a psych consult and I've given the go ahead," and never has Elliot been so glad for the restrictions of doctors, for standing in the way of progress in an investigation.

When he is shown to her room, he takes a deep breath before walking in, steeling himself. She cannot see him falter or weaken. The light is bright above her and it highlights the changes that have come about. Even the lines on her face have altered, and she is both completely the Olivia he has searched for, and not her at all. Her eyes are shut but as he comes closer she opens them slowly, dreamily, not all the way but enough to see him. She's covered in blankets and a drip is going underneath, leading to one hand.

"El," she says, and even with everything going on, his heart still lifts at the sound of her voice.

Liv," and he thinks he hears his own voice crack with emotion as he looks at her. "How you doing?" But her eyes are already sliding closed and he thinks she doesn't hear. It doesn't matter, nothing matters, only that she is in front of him and he can see the evidence that she is living on a monitor by her bed.

They sit together for a long time as she drifts in and out of sleep. She doesn't open her eyes again, but she murmurs under her breath, though Elliot can never hear what she is saying. The movement of her lips remind him of his children with they were babies, gentle actions of sleep, and he wishes he could stop whatever dreams she is having.

Just as she begins stirring properly, and he thinks she's about to wake and see him, a nurse gestures from the slightly open door, and he walks away with careful footsteps, looking back to check she isn't watching him leave. When he gets outside, the doctor from before is standing with another man, who offers his hand to Elliot.

"I'm the psychiatrist at this hospital. I'm here to assess Olivia."

"What does that entail?" Elliot's concerned about her, about too much being brought out into the open too soon, about the trauma she will go through.

"It just means I'm going to see whether she is a danger to herself or others. If she's not, then she'll be able to go home as soon as deemed appropriate to her physical state."

Elliot nods slightly, and the two men go into her room.

He leans against a wall and closes his eyes for a second, trying to gain control, before sliding down to the floor. He is aware of people coming and going around him, but there are also images flashing in his brain, a confusion of reality and dreams, and the sight of her twists in his head and she's still dead, loose in his arms and he's crying. Then he thinks of reality again, what she might be saying to the doctor, and he wants to listen and doesn't, to invade and claim her, and to let her have her space.

Finally he drags himself up from the floor and steps back into the waiting area, where Don glances at him as he walks in.

"Doctor is in there, but she seems okay" he says, and runs a hand down his face in exhaustion. Don stands and goes to the coffee machine, and when he hands Elliot the bitter tasting liquid, the heat of the cup and the normalcy of it all is an intense relief.

"I need some air," Elliot says, and they step out through the doors. The dark is just starting to fade, but there is no warmth in the light or the air, just a grey sharpness as they watch their breath. The sky is clouding over, heavy white, and he thinks it might snow. They might have snow for Christmas, two days from now. It will wipe out her tracks, any trace of where she has come from. If only it could wipe it all.

As they stand outside in comforting quiet a squad car pulls up, and Elliot recognises the woman getting out as Detective Tarpley. She walks over to them, offering the ghost of a smile, and Elliot doesn't know how to greet her, whether with recognition or fear. She takes control though, introducing herself to Don and asking after Olivia, and he's vaguely impressed that she isn't patronising either of them.

They go back inside, Don goes on a hunt for a doctor, and Elliot feels out of place with her beside him as she waits for permission to talk to Olivia. He doesn't want her to be interviewed, doesn't want her to tell what has happened, and yet the need to know where she has been is so strong it hurts. Through the glass of the waiting room, with the dancing lights of Christmas reflected back, he watches a mother carry a screaming child, and what a relief it would be to do the same.

The two doctors come back, and Kate steps forward, asking if she can interview her. It's the psych doctor that speaks first.

"Yes, but take it easy. She's had a mild sedative to take the edge off the shock, so she might be a bit groggy, but the first sign of distress and you are to stop. Understood?" Kate nods, and as she confers with her partner, the doctor turns to Elliot and Don.

"I'm declaring that she's no harm to herself or others, so as far as I'm concerned, she's okay to go. I'll call a colleague in Manhattan for you though, and make sure ongoing outpatient services are in place for when she gets back to the city. She'll need them." And there is professional sadness to the end of his sentence, and the expression on his face as he turns away. 

Elliot follows Kate and Paul as they go to her room but stops outside, standing by the doorway as a bodyguard, ready to protect. He knows he will not hear anything, he isn't sure he wants to, but he needs to be close to her as she does this.

When they walk in, he begins to settle himself into silence as the door starts to close, but then he hears her.

"Don't close it." and he's surprised by the quiet authority in her voice, even with it's shock and subdued sleepiness as well. The door stops moving, leaving it ajar, and now he knows her story will be audible to him. He wants to escape, doesn't want to eavesdrop, but he fears she will hear him leave as he steps away, and know that he is abandoning her. So he makes himself as still as he can, closing his eyes and tensing himself against the wave of pain.

The two detectives introduce themselves, and a chair squeaks slightly on the floor as it is moved. And then it starts.

"What happened yesterday," Kate asks, and he knows without seeing that Olivia won't be meeting her eye, her face turned away and gazing at nothing, as she has always done when talking about herself, though never in such a situation. He recognises Kate's tone as one Olivia has used, so many times in the past, with victims. To help them talk.

"He came downstairs in the afternoon and gave me a jacket. He said it was time to go. Then he led me up the stairs and blindfolded me before we got outside."

"Had you been outside before then?" She must shake her head, because there is no audible answer.

"What then?"

"He put me in a car, and told me to lie across the back seat. And then we drove. I don't know how long for." She's terrifyingly quiet, emotionless, a robot repeating words, and each one is a needle burrowing into his flesh.

"Did he say anything, could you hear anything to tell where you were going?" 

"No. He didn't say anything until we stopped. Then he said "This is it," came and took my blindfold off, and got me out."

"Do you know where you were?" Another negative shake must come. "What could you see?"

"A road. Trees. He handed me a couple of quarters, and told me to call for help when I could. Then he said goodbye, and drove away." Her voice fades on the last word, as if she leaves as well. He clenches a fist, wanting to hold onto her, and feels his nails draw blood. 

"What car was he in?"

"A dark blue SUV. Nissan maybe." 

"Did you get the license plate?"

"I didn't watch him leave. I just looked at my feet. He hadn't given me any shoes and they were already cold." His own involuntarily curl within his shoes, feeling the frozen road beneath then. 

"What then?" 

"I started walking," and there is a strange bemusement to her voice as she adds, "the world seemed so big. I thought the road would never end."

"Did you see any landmarks, signposts, that kind of thing?"

"I just kept walking." And there is a finality to her tone at that. Kate changes tack.

"What happened the night you were taken?" And even outside, Elliot can hear her take a deep breath before speaking. He matches it, holding the air tight within his lungs to sustain him through the barrage of punches that is her next speech. 

"He was behind the door when I got in. He held a knife to my throat but I hit him. When I did, he said he was going to kill me. I went for my gun but he launched himself at me. We knocked some stuff over, and then somehow we were both up again. I went to get my gun but he kicked my arm, there was a chair behind me, and I fell. It all went black then." It's all in monotone, his eyes are still closed, and he cannot open them to the world now. It will kill him, reality.

"What do you remember next?"

"Waking up in the basement." 

"What did the basement look like?" 

"I was on a mattress, on the floor. There were some boxes around, old bits of furniture. A normal basement. I felt really nauseous, and dizzy. I couldn't really focus." Elliot's body is mimicking her description, and the world is spinning even in the dark.

"What happened then?"

"I heard him come down the stairs and unlock the door before coming in. He turned the light on, and looked at me. He said he was sorry, that he hadn't meant to hurt me. I challenged him that he had wanted to rape me, but he said that wasn't the same thing. Then he said he didn't know I was a cop. He said they would kill him if they found him, they would say he had tried to murder me. So he couldn't let me go. He seemed scared. He said he would make it nicer for me, and then he asked me if I wanted anything. That was how it started."

She still sounds so emotionless, inhuman, and Elliot thinks as he hears her story that he's carrying her emotions for the two of them. There is the burn of threatened tears in his eyes, the throb of fear and agony in his chest and a screaming in his head at the unfairness of it all, her terror searing his veins.

"And you were held in that basement ever since?" He's impressed with Kate, her gentle tones haven't changed throughout the story, and he cannot get his head round the idea Olivia is just another job for her. Just another victim. It can't be true, Kate has been through some of the aftermath of her loss, coming into the squad after the devastation they had left behind. The shadow that must have still hung over them all. Not to mention the events of months before, the catching of Hartman and then losing him again.

"Yes."

"Could you hear anything? See anything?"

"There was a window, up high, but it already had bars across it, and he put more on the outside as well. Every time he did something to make the room more secure, he would apologise."

"Could you see anything out of the window?"

"The sky."

"What about what you could hear?"

"When he opened the window ajar a bit, to let air in, there were birds. If it was windy I could hear trees. Nothing else."

"No cars?"

"No."

"What does the basement look now?"

"He built a bed. Brought an old tin bath. He'd bring hot water down for me to wash. A table. He asked me what I liked to look at and brought me pictures. He brought me music as well, an Ipod. And books. Spare clothes. A chess set. He taught me how to play."

She sounds wistful, almost longing, and he's struck by intense, mixed emotions that churn and twist until his mind stops at Kate's next question. The ignorance of five years means nothing compared to this, is a gentle wave of protection falling over him, that is ripped away now. Never has he wanted to run more or felt so trapped, his own body forcing him to bear witness in its refusal to move.

"Did he ever hurt you, or touch you in any way?"

The question steals everything from him, breath and blood and beats of his head, and while he waits for an answer he is sure he is dead.

"No."

"So he didn't rape you?"

"No." At that, he presses his hand to his mouth, smothering the sob of relief but unable to contain the tears that escape his closed eyes.

"Did you ever see anyone else?"

"No." And within that negative, Elliot thinks he might be able to hear something else, some trace of emotion, but then there is quiet for a while and when she speaks again, there is just emptiness from her.

"Where is he?" She asks and Elliot imagines Kate glancing back at Paul before answering.

"We don't know. But we'll find him, don't worry. He didn't say anything to you ever, about where he might go?" Olivia must shake her head because she says nothing more and there comes the squeak of a chair as Kate stands.

"We'll find him," she reiterates, "get some rest now."

When they come out, Kate whispers that she was getting tired, Paul carefully leaves the door slightly open, and they walk down the corridor before daring to speak. It's Paul who goes first, his own voice shaking.

"Shame we can't narrow down a location more."

Kate replies that at least they've got something, and as they reach the door to the waiting room, glittering lights within, both are discussing the practicalities of the search. All Elliot can think of is what they're avoiding, that she has been through hell, but that it's not the hell they expected of a rapist. That it's unimaginable, and yet a blissful relief, and there is guilt within that. As if being held in a basement for five years isn't awful enough for them.

He stops when he glances at the waiting room and sees that not only is Don still there, but Fin, the captain and a man he doesn't know have arrived. He knows he will not survive another retelling of her story, hearing the brutal facts again, and he turns to go back to her.

When he walks in, his steps are soft and she's drifted off to sleep again. It's a peaceful scene, daylight sneaking in at the edges of the blinds, but when he gets closer, he sees that there are tears staining her face, and he thinks of how many times he has slept with them seeping from his eyes without him knowing. He wonders how many times she has done this, cried herself to sleep.

He sits down gently, wanting to reach out for her but also afraid of touching her, scaring her, and he's had his own eyes closed for a few minutes, revelling in silence, just the beat of her heart and the distant noises of the hospital invading, when he hears it.

She's murmuring, and when he looks at her, she's still asleep. It takes a couple more times of her speaking before he can tell what she is saying, but the word terrifies him.

It's the repetition of a man's name, not his and not Hartman's.

"Jake. Jake." She whispers, with tears still chasing trails down her face, and now he's certain this is no dream. Not even a nightmare could hold this much pain.


	5. Homeless

There is an echo of the name she has whispered going through his head five minutes later when he is still standing watching her. She has quietened now, slipped into easy sleep, and he doesn't know whether that is better or worse. If she had continued to cry, to call out to an unknown person, he could have had an excuse to wake her, to find answers. But now, he cannot break her silence. She looks at peace.

Everything is spinning, even as he sits down in the chair and stills himself. He half expects snowflakes to be falling around him. He is trapped in a snow globe, being turned head over heels and yet nothing settles, whoever is holding his life just keeps on shaking. He resists the urge to go to the window where white light is sneaking in at the edges, and see whether it is snowing out there. He thinks it will disorientate him too much if it is. Will confirm the dizzying, twisting day.

Instead he tries to match his breaths to hear, to focus on the sound of her heartbeat and let it soothe him as it had before. He wonders if this is what it is like in the womb, just the thud of a heart and the sound of air coming and going. Floating is another option...anything is better but the chair beneath him, her lying beside him and another man's name on her lips.

Five years. Two men. Hell. His mind cannot, refuses to comprehend, and he wants to shake the truth from her. She's lying, he knows that, perhaps even knew it as he stood outside the door and listened to her words. This is something they have both known a lot of, how to lie when talking about yourself. He's amazed nothing has changed. She stills holds it all inside. Father, Mother, Brother, Love. Pain. Jake. He sits still and spins.

It's a relief when Don comes to the door, holding out a cellphone, remaing silent when he looks at Olivia, still sleeping. They step outside, into the fluorescent glare of the hospital corridor where he blinks and tries to focus.

"It's Kathy. She said yours is off." Elliot looks confused at Don's cell for a second, he cannot remember who Kathy is or why she would be calling. Or even what to do with the piece of technology being offered to him. "I'll sit with her." Don continues, as if it is not wanting to leave her alone that is causing him to stall. The truth is, he's locked in Wonderland. and doesn't know where the next moments are going.

"Kathy," and its a strange relief to hear her voice, so familiar and calm at the other end. The ground firms beneath him.

"How is she?"

"In shock. Shaken up. We don't really know much," and it is both a lie and the truth. They know the facts but nothing else, and she is hiding so much that the facts almost mean nothing, as scarce as they are. A sketch is all she has given, a few pencil lines, revealing nothing of the picture. He's not sure he wants to know what it is of.

"Do you need anything?" And he's so confused and tangled in his thoughts that he starts to shake his head before realising he is talking to her on the phone and replies properly. It's the next question that jerks him to properly to reality.

"Does she need anything?" In the silence following the question, there are eternal answers. A home. Five years back. Comfort. Safety. Life. Courage. What can anyone give her but words and help, but what use is help now? He cannot take the years back. He doesn't know what she needs. She carries on, "Clothes? Anything from her apartment?"

Practicalities. What a relief it is to have her thinking for him. "Could you bring some clothes...she hasn't got anything. What she was wearing has been taken as evidence." But even as he speaks, he's wondering what clothes. Whether it would be appropriate to bring her things from her place, if that would be too hard.

"Is she still the same size?" He thinks to when he picked her up, to how she felt in his arms.

"Yeah, I think so."

"There's some things of Kathleen's here. I'll pack what I think and bring it up." And her logic, the idea that she has so much more idea what Olivia will need calm him even more than watching her sleep has managed. He cannot hide the thanks in his voice, it cracks as if he is about to cry, and he keeps talking for a few more minutes, hiding from reality with his wife.

When he's finished the phone call, and Kathy has arranged to drop the items off, he goes back to the still open door. There are low voices from within, but not low enough that he cannot hear, and yet again he is eavesdropping to her words. It's Don he makes out first.

"If you wanted leave, you could have just asked," and its a gentle joke that he stiffens too. The kind of thing they would have said all those years ago, but he doesn't know how she will feel now, he fears her throwing the trauma back in Don's face. He fears her not being that person any more. Being so broken she is unrecognisable.

"Well, I got more time off this way," and despite the slight shake of her voice, the tiredness the sedation has left, the weary tone and the way it sounds as though she too isn't sure she is that person, he wants to cry, just hearing the attempt at teasing.

He sees her doctor leaning at the desk down the corridor, writing something down, and walks towards him.

"When can she go?"

"This evening, if she's comfortable doing so and her tests come back clear." So soon, he thinks. He wonders if she will want to leave, to face the world, or whether the isolated, unreal comfort of the hospital will appeal too much. Whether she will be too scared to face a world she hasn't seen for so long.

"Do you think she'll be okay?" He doesn't know what he's asking. Whether he means physically or emotionally. What on earth he is looking for.

Physically, she'll be fine. But..." And the doctor, an efficient professional, trails off with no more words. That's all it is really, all the last years have been and what it is now, even with her back. Uncertainty, unanswered questions, never knowing what is going to come.

When he goes back, Fin has gone into the room as well and he falters at the door, wondering if the three men will be too much for her. Wondering whether it is safe to go in. Before it would have been fine, but what about now? He steels himself and pushes the door, smiling falsely at her as her eyes come up to meet his for the first time. For a split second, she is foreign to him, and then she smiles bashfully, shyly, and she is just Olivia again.

"Doc says you can get out of here this evening if you're feeling okay," Immediately after he has spoken, his mind analyses everything he has just said. The words he has just used "get out of here" "okay" and he resists the impulsion to apologise. The Olivia he knew would have thrown something at him for treating her like glass. Perhaps she is glass now. But she says nothing, just nods as all three of them look at her.

"I'm fine," and it's Olivia all over. "I'll be better once I'm out of here though." Don and Fin look at each other and both stand up simultaneously.

"We'll go and check how things are going," Fin says. Elliot thinks he can see her eyes mask themselves slightly at even the mention of the investigation or Hartman, and as Don lies a hand over hers for a second, her jaw locks for a moment. There is something she hasn't told, he's so sure of that now, and as the others walk past him, he doesn't approach her. Her eyes drop to the covers, close, and she breathes out, as if relieved they've gone.

He still hasn't moved when she opens them again, he doesn't know why, only that he is as conflicted as he has ever been. He's certain she's lying, she's a victim who is lying to them, and he thinks what damage that could do. Who she might be protecting. How deeply into Stockholm syndrome she might be caught. And the three women who were raped flash into his mind. Their justice. That is one half.

The other half wants to simply hold her, to tell her its okay, to let her know she never has to tell them for as long as she lives if she doesn't want to. To be the friend that she needs, not the cop that disbelieves her. To rejoice in how alive she is, and to give her everything she needs.

He does neither.

"How are the children?" And she's braved the silence first, as usual in their awkward situations, when neither says words or knows where they stand.

"They're good." He moves over to sit in the chair Don has vacated and pulls his wallet out, taking out her a recent family picture. As she reaches for it her fingers catch the other photo he has carried in there. The one of her. The one so creased it is more worn and used than that of his children and wife. He feels rather than hears her breath catch at the sight of it, and it quivers in her hand before she hands it back without a word. He cannot look at her until he has tucked it back in, and when he does she is inspecting the picture of his family, touching one finger to Eli, standing in front of the rest of them.

"He's so big," And Elliot tries to remember the last time she would have seen him, a one year old, barely able to walk or talk. He can't bring to mind the exact moment, but he thinks how weird it must be to see him so old. Suddenly the weight of what has happened hits him and he wants to cry. When she hands him back the picture, she's still shaking.

"Where's Munch?" Oh god, they haven't told her. He thinks this might come as more of a shock than everything combined. He cannot, dare not, will not tell her the whole story yet. He will not let her carry John's breakdown, his collapse, his loss before his redemption.

"He retired. And got married again," and being the one to tell her is almost worth it for the second smile she gives, this one real and true, long forgotten humour bubbling between them at the news he is married again.

"You're kidding," Her voice is hers again, as solid and real as it has been, and it's bliss to fall into old comfort.

"Nope. And he's a father. He has a son."

"A son..." she echoes his words, the smile still there but drifting into something else, and he cannot tell whether it is just surprise and happiness. Whether the regret that seems to be there is just from missing what has changed.

"Yeah. He's about three now. You'll love him. His name's Aaron." He cannot bring himself to add his middle name, Oliver. Cannot bear to see her face when he does so, when she takes on board its meaning, the remembrance that lies within it, the dedication. He's too scared of what tiny moment might break her.

There is the faint hint of tears within her eyes when she looks away, staring at the window with the blind pulled across, and they sit. He fears. She breathes. And when she speaks again, it isn't what he is expecting.

"Can you open the blind?"

When he does so he's grateful for the chance to move, the opportunity to do something for her. The view is nothing, a parking lot and the grey, sullen clouds skulking overhead. But it's something, and he wonders what she sees when she looks. How different her view is.

They stay quiet, with nothing but her heartbeat between them, and no time at all seems to have gone past when there is a faint knock on the open door and a nurse is standing there.

"Mr. Stabler, you're needed out here. And I need to do Olivia's obs." It is strange for him to be referred to as such. Not detective any more.

When he steps outside into the waiting room, Kathy is there, holding a bag towards him.

"There is everything she needs. I hope it's alright. Just some casual clothes of Kathleen's. A couple of magazines. I didn't know..." And he thinks how he doesn't know either.

"Thank you." He means it with the whole of his heart.

"When is she being discharged?"

"This evening hopefully," and she nods and then goes to leave without saying anything else, kissing him once on the cheek. As she's walking away, she turns back and looks him in the eye.

"She can come home if she doesn't want to go anywhere else. I've sorted a room for her." Elliot is stunned into silence at her words, and stutters as he replies.

"You know she's...it might not be...easy..." he's not sure what he's trying to say, "it's Christmas, they'll all be there, how can we..."

"I've survived you and five children. We'll be fine." And it's Kathy all over. In that moment, with that offer, he thinks he loves her as much as he ever as. Olivia is the woman that broke him, that Kathy feared, that she almost hated for having Elliot so much of the time. Perhaps that she hated for being lost, and reducing him to what he is now. How time changes everything.

When he goes back, the nurse and the doctor are coming out of her room.

"She's just going to eat something, and then she's fine to go." The doctor says, and Elliot nods before turning to the nurse.

"I've got these for her, some clothes and stuff," and the nurse nods before going back in. The doctor is scribbling something on a pad then hands the paper to him.

"There's the meds I want you to get. There's a sedative in case things get too difficult. And something to help her sleep." He looks Elliot in the eye as he continues, "Keep them out of her reach, but if she needs them...well...she needs all the help she can get." Elliot nods and takes the paper, looking down at it but not seeing. What has been implied has frozen him, the confirmation that he may lose her just as he has her back. That this really will break her.

He's still standing staring when Don finds him, takes the prescription and steers Elliot to the waiting room before saying he'll go and get it filled. It takes long minutes before his mind brings him back to the present, instead of twisting through a nightmare of fear and dread. Through what might happen now.

As he waits, his knees jump and he resists the urge to pace. After so long, an hour shouldn't matter. Neither should a day or a week, a month or even a year. He's not even sure what he's so anxious for, only that he wants her out of this foreign place. She doesn't belong here, in the stark rooms of the hospital, need spread across her. She belongs in New York, in a place that isn't anything to do with the lost years. In a place she remembers. In a place they can start to bring her back.

There is only a vague sense of what is happening around him, and he almost doesn't hear when he makes out a few pieced together words spoken by Fin, who is in the room with Paul.

"Olivia...discharged...drive...retrace..." Still, they are enough to jerk his head up violently and listen properly to what is being said. When he tunes himself to the conversation, rage and indignation lights within.

"No." Fin and Paul turn towards him, Paul's face open but Fin already with wariness, "You can't ask her to do that."

Fin is close-mouthed, braced against Elliot's anger, but Paul doesn't know him and starts to speak, to defend even as Elliot stands up.

"We need her to try and find where she was. We need to know." His face is genuine, open with desire for justice and the fixed jaw of a man who will not be swayed. Elliot knows that feeling. He can match it, blow for blow.

"You're not putting her through that. It's too soon." His voice is low and calm. He knows Fin tastes the threat, the calm streaked with warning, but Paul doesn't. The room is alight.

"If we wait, she'll forget. We'll lose valuable evidence. The doctor has cleared us." And that piece of information is thrown towards Elliot as if it will beat all arguments. That a medical professional has declared it okay.

"I don't care. You're not doing it." Even as he is speaking the cop within is bringing arguments to the fore. Not trying to persuade him, just reminding him of what Paul will say, of moments in time when he has done the same thing to traumatised victims. When he has convinced them it is the right thing to do.

"You happy to just let him get away? When there could be clues to where he's going? To what has happened?" With that statement Elliot gets his first clue...that they know she is holding back as well. That they know five years cannot possibly be reduced to the few sentences Olivia has revealed. That they think there are lies within her statements.

His blood boils with injustice and defence of her, and he doesn't care. Not about what should be done, not about lies or investigations or an escaped rapist. Not about truth or evidence. All he wants to do is protect her.

Fin knows what is coming and steps between them, lying a hand on Elliot's chest to keep him from Paul even before he has moved forwards. Elliot's shoulders are up, he can feel himself bristling, and before he knows it he is yelling.

"You haven't got a fucking clue what you're talking about. What if it breaks her? Tips her over the edge? Christ knows what she's been through and you want to drag her through that? You want to treat a fellow cop like that?

"I don't know who it is in there, but I think we're walking a fine line between the Olivia we had and some unknown person who cannot even function. You want to destroy her? You want to rip away what little she has? She's not strong enough for that, she is as broken as anyone I've seen and I'm telling you now...she won't survive it." He doesn't know what he is saying, only that his fears pour from him, released with rage, and it takes seconds to see that everything has frozen around him. Despite his ferocity, they aren't looking at him any more.

Slowly he turns, nausea spinning his stomach and behind him, at the door with Don beside her, she's standing there. As pale as a sheet. Her expression kills him as she whispers,

"El." He cannot read her.

"Liv." Taking a step towards her, he dreads her stepping back, fearing him, condemning him. But there is nothing in her eyes, only a tiredness so familiar he aches with it. The number of times she has watched him lose control. It's all reflected back in that moment, and as he calms at the sight of her and the sound of his name on her lips, there is no one else in the room, no detectives or doctors, no years, nothing but them as a partnership again.

"Let's get out of here." She turns and begins to walk without looking at anyone else. He follows.

Catching up and draping his jacket round her shoulder, they say nothing. Her steps are beside his, he stays slow to compensate for the damage to her feet, but when he glances at her there is no pain in her face. In fact, there is nothing until they step outside, and the light spilling from behind them illuminates snow drifting in spinning spirals around them.

She stops and looks up, and it's as if the stars are falling down towards her. Suddenly, an apprehensive smile seems to soak into her, as if she can't believe it, as if she doesn't dare to smile or feel, as if it cannot be true. He wonders what the night must look like after so long without it. What the air and the light and the dancing flakes mean to her. They stand until he fears her getting cold again, and moves off slowly. She follows, but her eyes keep flicking round.

They pull away from the hospital, and its a relief to be driving. It feels so right, to have her beside him in the car with familiar moments when she tucks her hair behind one ear and she watches the world around her. But it is all so different as well. He is tense and anxious, worried about her reactions, worried about the world being too much for her. About the signs of the city, the past flooding back. Her breaking beside him if he says the wrong word, the wrong phrase. But for now, she just takes in everything going past and doesn't acknowledge his quick looks. He wonders if she's even aware, so distant is her expression.

He thinks she's lost somewhere, in the past or in a safe place in her head, until she breaks the silence.

"Where are we going?" He doesn't want to make decisions for her, to dictate to her. He fears ripping away fragile choices of the kind she won't have had for so long. Where to go, where she might feel comfortable being.

"Where do you want to...I mean...your apartment is still..." and as he says it she looks at him for the first time since getting into the car. There is shock there, and something else. Disappointment perhaps. He wants to watch her face but its so painful he cannot, and looks towards the welcoming black of the road reaching away from him.

"No. I don't want to go there." She's firm. Forceful.

"My house then." And it manages to be neither a question or a statement but falls in between, uncertainty obvious. He isn't looking at her when she nods, but he feels it nonetheless, as clearly as if the car had shaken with her movement. He sinks into the driving, the hum of the tyres and the tightening of every cell minutely as they get closer to the city, the orange glow increasing and highlighted against the falling clouds.

He wonders whether she is as tense as he is. As wary of their approach to the past, to what she left behind. He's glad they're not going into the city. He dreads the ghosts he finds there when he ventures in, and it would be worse for her. It has to be.

Then, before he can blink or gather his thoughts properly, work out what to say or do, they are there, sitting in front of his house with patches of light checking the newly fallen slow on the front yard. He lets the engine idle, giving them a chance to escape, breaking the nothingness that surrounds them. When he looks at her she's staring at the house, and he cannot tell whether there are tears in her eyes, or if its just a reflection he sees. Neither move.

The snow melts as it hits the still warm car, but sticks as it rests on frozen ground. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. It will be perfect. It will be anything but. He hurts as he watches her, desperate to reach and touch, comfort, soothe. But they don't, they never did, he can count on one hand the number of times they have held each other in such an open way, and he won't break that now. The only person he wants to be is the Elliot from before. The one she knows. He's scared that anything else will be too much. Still, his hands twitch with the desire to hold her, as she sits outside and watches.

A sigh comes, her eyes closed, and she reaches for the door. He reacts too slowly, his mind had told him they'd be here for much much longer before she works up the courage, and she's slammed it before he is out. Still, there are long slow steps to take towards the front door and he catches up easily, his arm hovering beneath hers but not touching as she walks on painful feet. She shows no sign of weakness though, only trepidation, like she's approaching the lion's den.

"It will be okay," and he means it with his whole heart as he says it. It cannot be anything else. He doesn't wait for any reply, just opens the door and warm air draws them in like mists curling in the night. She steps in, and Kathy is walking towards them, shutting the kitchen door behind her to block the laughter of Eli and his sisters. She says nothing, just smiles at Olivia and Olivia smiles back. Elliot is out of his depth, cannot read what goes between them but Kathy takes control.

"I expect you just want to go to bed. The house is a bit chaotic, but they know to be quiet upstairs. Come on," and Olivia follows, not docile but relieved, and Elliot is left behind.

By the time he can make his feet move there is the murmur of voices upstairs and he follows them, homing in but standing just outside the door, a clumsy man unsure how to intrude into something he doesn't understand. Kathy asks if she needs anything, and he cannot make out Olivia's answer but he gets it anyway when Kathy walks out and pulls the door so it is open but closed, so light filters onto the landing but Olivia is left alone.

"Is she okay?" Elliot whispers, and Kathy gives him a look that tells him he should know better. There is no answer to that.

"Just leave her to rest. She looks exhausted. I said I'd check in a bit later, and she seemed okay with that." Kathy glances back at the door but doesn't say anything further, and when she reaches the top of the stairs she looks at him, gesturing for him to follow. He can't. His feet are frozen to the ground, as if he is tied to her and the string only stretches so far. He will not leave her.

Instead, he slides quietly down the wall and onto the floor, resting his head back against the wall that separates them. If she needs him, he will be there. He won't let her down this time. He won't fail to come.

When Kathy has left them, her to her rest and him to his vigil, he closes his eyes and listens to the sounds of the room. She moves around, opens the closed curtains, sits on the bed. He waits to hear her cry, but it doesn't come. He waits for the light to click off, but that doesn't come either.

Minutes tick by, then hours, and the children creep upstairs past him to bed. Children that aren't that any more, and one that is, who obviously tiptoes up the stairs and makes more noise than the rest of them combined. All look at him but do not speak, just give smiles. He replies in kind, and then wonders whether they looked real or fake.

Night settles, dulled by snow coating them all. The world always seems quieter, sound deadened, and he thinks she must have fallen asleep until he hears her move, and then the scratch of writing that he can only pick up because he's so focused on the room. It doesn't last long, but when he closes his eyes he is sitting across from her as she writes reports. Finally the bed squeaks as she settles onto it and he exhales, ready for the night. This is an easy wait. And the worst.

_Everything feels wrong. People have changed and the way they look at me makes me think I have too. I don't feel like that though. I feel like I've stood still and they've moved on. How can I have changed. Into what will I have changed. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps I'm just broken._

_I don't want to be here. I can't breathe. The world is too big, it's weighing down on me. I want to feel safe. I felt safe there. Let me go back. I wanted to be free but this isn't free. This is noise and light. How can there be so many noises around? Why can no one else hear them? Crying and cars and doors and the creak of stairs that I don't know. This house is full of sound and I will never rest. It's too much. _

_Already I want him back. I miss them both. It's wrong, I know it is. It's broken in my head. But they knew me better than anyone does now. El looks at me and I don't know who he is. Or who he sees. Have I changed so much? Or so little? He's changed. He's quieter. Greyer. Contained within himself. At least, I thought he was. Then he let go, and I miss him so much. I want him back. I want it all back, everything I've lost. I'm nothing but scared. I missed him so much. And it's all gone, and nothing makes sense. It feels like it did, those first days and weeks, until I settled. How can I do this again? Is this how Mom felt? Is this what it is, to be a victim? I never knew. Never guessed. The footsteps that slow and draw back from noise, the constant watching. The wait for you to do something. Mom, I miss you. I've told you it before but I do. _

_This isn't my world. I don't belong here. I never did but now more than ever I don't. I must be broken. No one could be saved and not be. It's wrong though, this is all so wrong. _

_Please, let me go home. _


	6. Dreamless

Hours tick past. The light stays on within the room and he cannot make himself move. She doesn't seem to either, no sounds come, and he fights the urge to check that she is still there. He knows she is, there is nowhere for her to go, but still...after so many years. He expected her to be restless, to need him, but no sign of that has come. His helplessness claws at his throat and in his stillness it chokes him, slowly but without the relief of an end in sight.

It's 4.16am by his watch when he slowly, carefully stands, trying not to let the gentle brush of his clothes give him away, and places his feet purposefully down. He knows the creaks of the house and this doorway doesn't contain one, but he takes care anyway. Relief floods him when he shifts into the light, and sees her.

She is lying turned towards the door, covers pulled up high against the cold, curled into a ball. She looks smaller than she ever has, with her dark hair stark against the pale of her face and the pillow beneath her, but her expression is calm, with no distress. Most of the bed is smooth and flat, like she hasn't moved much. He can see one hand, fingers curled in relaxation, and it reminds him of the innocence of his children as they sleep.

The curtains are pulled wide, a window open a crack despite the snow resting outside, and the air in the room is fresh, a taste of ice but with none of the numbing bite. He watches for a while, expecting her to somehow feel his gaze, but then remembers the remnants of the medication and the traumas of the day. It's not likely that much will get through to her. Still, its hard to tear himself away from her.

Stepping back to his place of vigil, he slides down the wall and this time allows himself to lie on his back against the hard floor. The muscles across his shoulders complain and burn for a second before stretching and settling; this isn't the worst place he's tried to sleep by any means. Hours in the crib sneak into his mind, the forceful way they had to approach sleep sometimes, a battle to relax. He listened to her breathing even then, counting her exhales in order to allow himself to sleep.

How things come full circle.

He is violently awoken just after 6 am by Eli catapulting himself onto his stomach, knocking some wind out of him and making his muscles jerk into attack before his brain awakes. He goes to leap, but quick flashes of the previous night and day and night hit him and he stops his movements and then wraps his arms around his young son, who is wiggling with the inordinate energy of a boy in the midst of childhood.

His heart is still racing with adrenaline when he whispers "Shh, it's early. Go back to bed." Eli shakes his head, and Elliot knows the stubbornness in his jaw is a mirror image of his own so often. "Go downstairs and watch TV then. Quietly." Eli slips his small hand into Elliot's large one and tries pull his father off the floor and take him with him, but Elliot whispers "no," and places a finger over his lips, trying to convey his seriousness in just a look. It works, thankfully. However, as Eli walks carefully down the stairs, Elliot hears a noise from the room and freezes. She must be awake. A shiver slips up his spine.

He steels himself, stands, knocks gently on the door, and catches a whisper only just faint enough to be heard. "Come in."

She's standing by the open window, arms wrapped round herself, and it's still dark outside. She doesn't turn to look at him, just keeps watching the night, and he walks a few steps into the room before stopping, feeling as though he is trespassing. She is dressed in pyjamas he recognises as Kathleen's, thick socks he thinks might be Maureen's, and its a strange sight. He thinks he could highlight twenty things that are wrong with that picture, but forces himself to blink and refocus. That is the past. This is the now. This is where he has to be.

"Do you want anything?" Only now does she look at him, giving a weak smile that holds nothing within it.

"Coffee?" And when he smiles back, hers turns more into one he recognises for an instant, a flash of colour within the light that brushes her. Coffee has always brought them together. An odd part of his brain, that he seems to have no control over, says "See...she's still Liv. She left last time and changed more. Last time she wanted tea." It's a ridiculous argument, but it settles him.

"I'll bring it up." He doesn't really want to leave her alone, to stretch the thread that binds him so far, but he thinks he must. He cannot be so attached to her forever, and nothing will happen while he goes downstairs. Perhaps. He never expected something to happen when she walked into the sanctuary of her own apartment either.

It is the fastest coffee making in the history of the world, punctuated only by the dim sounds of the TV where Eli is watching inane cartoons. Elliot thinks, on another day, he might have joined him. The bright flashing colours and nonsensical characters appeal most to someone who lives on the gritty edge of the world, where the only colours seem to be blood and pain and grey numbness.

He makes it as she used to like it, and hopes that that is still right, and this time when he walks into her room, she comes to meet him half way, and they sit on the end of the bed together. The sigh that she makes at the first sip is the same. The duck of her head is the same. The way she tucks long strands of hair behind one ear. It's all the same, as if they weren't sitting before dawn on Christmas Eve, with five years between them. He doesn't know what to say.

"Sleep okay?" Of all the things to ask. She nods, and gives him an almost condescending look. Awkward silences are still what they do best.

"I'm not going to break. Not without warning you anyway." When he steals a glance at her after this comment, she is already looking away, sipping her coffee again, but there is a hint of something there. Of her teasing him, or a smile, or something that just speaks of being her, and when he takes a mouthful of his own drink, its not the taste of coffee but of hope that he feels burn his tongue.

This is the way she deals with things, sarcasm within a truth. Her mother, blunt but with a wry expression, acknowledging the weight of the words but numbing it with a lightness that never quite reaches her eyes. The day she walked from the squad room with a comment on her parentage, and that smile on her face. "Drunk...violent...cruel...". It's her way of shielding the hurt, even now.

"Good to know," is the only reply he has, but it seems to suffice. They finish their coffee in silence, and dawn slips in through the open window, along with the bright air. He can feel her, not in the room at all but somewhere he doesn't exist, and stares at the stained bottom of his empty mug, waiting for the moment she returns.

Eli is the first to break her spell, charging up the stairs as if there are ten six year olds coming and not just one. He is an overexcited, solid bundle of energy, launching into the bedroom much as he had done so on the landing, except this time he freezes half way, when he does not expect to come face to face with Olivia.

"Hi." There is still an inbuilt need to fidget in his stance, and the greeting is quiet but smiling. He has never been a shy boy. Having three older sisters and an older brother has meant he's seen more than his fair share of people visiting his house, and Olivia is no one different to the others. "I'm Eli." And with that, he holds out his hand to her.

She smiles, a real smile this time that shifts some of the darkness from her face, and shakes his hand gently. "Hi. I'm Olivia."

If Elliot stopped and thought, he'd be struck by the absurdity of it. That Olivia, who had held Eli in the first minutes of his birth, who had been there when Elliot hadn't, who had seen those first blinking moments should now be introducing herself. And that Eli, who should have had Olivia as a huge part of his life, doesn't even know who she is.

"Olivia." And he flashes a glance once at his dad. "Like your friend. Who went away."

"She's back now." It's three words, so simple, that send a shiver up Elliot's spine and across his skin, that make all his hairs tingle. However, he doesn't dare to look at her, to see her response, fearing too much the toll seeing his son after so long will take.

"Do you like soccer?" And the question makes Elliot smirk involuntarily. It's Eli's latest obsession, fuelled consistently by Kathleen and Lizzie, and even in the deep winter he's desperate to drag someone out to play.

"Why don't we save all the questions till after breakfast, hey champ?" Eli nods once, and then the idea of breakfast and food and the things that really matter to a seven year old click in.

"I can't reach the Cheerios. Can you get them Dad?"

Elliot looks at Olivia, then internally kicks himself for checking. The fear of controlling her, of clinging, of giving her no choice in his presence is so intense he can barely contain it, but she doesn't seem to realise. Instead, she lets him off his worries by asking, "Is it okay if I grab a shower?"

And then, as easily as that, dawn has broken on a Christmas Eve that holds them all together for the first time in so, so long. Daughters come shuffling out of bedrooms in robes and gather round the kitchen to create crumbs and open jars of spread, and the shower doesn't stop going even after Olivia is out, and has retreated back to her room. For a brief hour or two at the beginning of the day, things feel normal, although in that normality there still lurks a trace of...not tension but of awareness at the surreality of it all.

It breaks just after 9am when the phone doesn't stop demanding attention. The first is Don, asking after her, saying that he won't ask her to talk, but to call him if she needs too. Despite the fact he knows without doubt Elliot has the number, he reads it out again, and when he hangs up Elliot thinks of him, having waited until what might be considered a reasonable hour for Christmas Eve before calling, sitting watching the clock tick by. It cannot be a coincidence that it came at two minutes past the hour.

Then come all the others in turn, a parade of people from Olivia's past who line up to find out from the one closest if what they have heard can really, really be true. Warner, Cabot, Novak, Jefferies, even Cassidy who is gruff when he asks and doesn't hang on the phone for more than it takes to ascertain that she is 'okay'.

Then it's Fin, and now his attention comes entirely onto the voice on the other end, instead of flitting through the house and listening to the noises that come, searching for something out of the ordinary. "Hey".

"How is she?" Fin sounds exhausted, with the same edge of tension that Elliot knows he is carrying with him.

"Seems okay. Hasn't really said much. She got some sleep last night though." 

"Good." There's a pause, the kind that only comes when someone is brewing to say something difficult, that produces sickness in the pit of his stomach. "We just got a call. The press know."

It needs nothing more than that for what little he had held from the morning, from the dawn coffee and the remnants of normality to dissipate. He sighs. He knew it was coming. This kind of thing doesn't stay quiet for long. Not in a city of vultures, that feeds to this kind of thing with free abandon, these things that are the lives of others but are also just a headline waiting to be thrown away. "Do they know where she is?"

"No. But they're bound to come to you." Fin's sigh matches his through the phone. "Local precinct are sending a patrol round to keep them out of the way, but it could get intense. One P.P are going to release a statement simply saying she's been found alive and with no significant injury, and reiterate that they are looking for Hartman. And asking people to respect her privacy."

Elliot can see the TV screen in his mind. The breaking news sliding across, the five years compressed into one short sentence, the disbelief in the voices of the anchors. He sees the reporters, clumped in groups outside his house, her old apartment that lies empty, the precinct where her name will be written on form after form after form.

"You want us to arrange somewhere else for her? For you both?"

The thought repels him, but he pushes his own thoughts down and replies, "I'll speak to her. See what she says. I'll call you back."

"We're going to need to talk to her again as well, today." It's Fin the cop now, not Fin the concerned friend.

"Okay." He doesn't bother to argue, not now. He knows it's coming.

When he's off the phone, Kathy is near him, hovering as a mother goose, defending her family, ready to do what it takes. Elliot brushes a hand down his face before speaking, a twisting guilt lurking that somehow, he's brought more problems into the house in bringing Olivia. That even though no one will feel as he does, Olivia is work and he hates when they cross lines like this. Of course, she's so so so much more than work, but he doesn't deal well with the sections of his life interacting. It makes him wonder who he is.

"Press know. It could get intense," And he is not surprised to see the understanding flash immediately in her eyes. "Tell the kids not to answer the phone or the door, and not to go out the front. I'm going to speak to Liv, find out what she wants."

"What are the options?" 

"To stay here or to go somewhere else. There's going to be attention here, but unless someone tips them off they won't know for certain. Might still cause some stress though. But going somewhere else...I don't know if it would be better or worse." He feels weary as he goes to take the stairs, nothing to do with the lack of sleep but everything to do with the feeling that, though she is back in their lives, it seems to have created more than it has fixed. Kathy stops him by resting her hand once on his arm.

"Whatever she wants, it will be okay."

Taking a breath before he raps quietly on her ajar door, it feels like the calm before the storm, relinquishing the tightrope of peace they have achieved these few mornings. However, his trepidation is halted in its tracks as, when the shout comes to enter, it is Eli and not Olivia. He pushes it open, and finds them both cross legged on the floor at the foot of the bed, a puzzle between them that Eli has been nagging people to do with him for ages. They barely spare him a glance before going back to the pieces.

"Liv, Fin called. The press know." At first she gives no reaction, seeming not to hear, but then nods without looking back up at him.

"What do you want to do? Do you want to go somewhere away from it?" She doesn't answer, just shows a piece to Eli, who grins and puts it in place. The scene is a picture that refuses to fit in his mind, of family contentment. Elliot waits. "Liv?"

"It's up to you El. You and your family. It's your house. I'll go if you don't want the hassle." She doesn't say where she'll go, she hasn't looked at him, and the quiet resignation breaks him more than her begging to stay would have done. He leaves at that, and looks back once, but she is back to the puzzle as if nothing that he has just said has anything to do with her, or her life. He wonders how many decisions she has made, over the last years.

When he goes downstairs, leaving them to their peace, Kathy has assembled the older children, and they sit round the kitchen table as if having a board meeting, Elliot at the head. He doesn't feel in charge though, but manages to sound calm as he speaks.

"The press know that Olivia's been found, so they're going to bug us. I've spoken to Olivia, and she says its up to us whether she stays or not."

"Of course she does," Kathleen injects quickly.

"Hang on, it's gotta be a joint decision. And its not going to be easy. Things could go south with her, and it could be upsetting." And he scans each person at the table as he says it, though he thinks perhaps they won't see how bland his words are in the face of what could come. Of how extreme Olivia's breakdown might be, if and when it comes.

"We're old enough to handle things Dad, and we can keep Eli out of the way if necessary." It's Maureen this time, with adult composure.

"It'll interrupt Christmas." All of them give him a scathing look at that.

"How bad will it be? From the press?" Kathy asks.

"There'll be a lot of them. Locals are sending round cops to keep them off the property but there's nothing to stop them being on the sidewalk. They'll call, they'll harass the neighbours, and they'll pounce when we go out." He is not trying to scare them, but he wants them to know that they are not people in this role, but predators.

"So we don't go out," Dickie says, like it's the easiest thing in the world, and Elliot envies his often relaxed attitude to the world.

"Yeah Dad. It's Christmas. We've got tons of food in the house, no one was coming round, we can just pull the plug on the phone and hibernate indoors. Who wants to go out in the snow anyway." Lizzie leans back like her word is law, and the argument is won.

His eyes flick first to Maureen, who nods and says "We can't send her away Dad." And then to Kathy, who simply nods.

"Okay. Hibernation it is." The chairs scrape from around the table, but he doesn't stand with them for a second. Sometimes it hits him, how proud he is of his children. Kathy has turned back to the counter, not retreating like the others, and when he stands, he finds himself holding her in the tightest hug he has produced for a long time. Not for being his wife, not for helping to produce these children with open hearts, but for being the calm woman who never seems unbalanced any more, who never shows the extremes he does so well.

When he tells Olivia she's staying, she doesn't say anything at first, eyes overly focusing on the puzzle that is still emerging, but there is a relaxation in her shoulders. "If Kathy wants me to do anything..." she sidles off, and he wants to hold her too, but not in a clutch of thanks but in a desperation to feel her solidity, to know that she is real, and she is the person he has searched so long for. That has been through not least the last couple of days, and still wants to help.

It's after a lunch that Olivia declines and the children abscond with to their bedrooms that the doorbell rings, simultaneously matching the sound of his cell, which tells him that it is Fin at the door. When he pulls it open they come quickly in, as much to escape the snow that has started to fall again as the shouts of reporters and the flashes he can see in the dim lights.

It's the woman, Kate Tarpley, with him, and Elliot knows without it even being a conscious thought that it is because they are still treading in circles, wary of subjecting her to men. He shows them into the front room, that is still empty of family, and both detectives look uncomfortable as they sit, as he remembers doing when in the homes of people, when doing his job. Each stair seems to creak all the louder, each heartbeat thump harder as he approaches what he must do again. What more he must put her through.

The door is wider open now, so he can see her easily, and she's back at the window, watching the snow with her arms curled around her in the same position as that morning, seeming to be somewhere far from the snow and the questions and him.

"Liv, Fin's here. They...they need to talk to you." His voice isn't as firm as he could wish, isn't as supportive as he hopes, but she brushes past without a word and takes the stairs with far more confidence than he had expected.

He follows her down, and lurks slightly outside before slipping in and taking a chair, leaning back and trying to both be unnoticed by the detectives, and a support for Olivia. She shows no sign that she has welcomed his presence, but she also doesn't tense or ask him to leave, and so he stays.

Fin offers a few more words of consolation or care, and she bites her lip once and sighs before sitting up that bit straighter and sliding her hair firmly behind one ear. "Let's get this over with." And the room prickles with atmosphere as each takes their own stance, their own role in this drama.

Elliot has never truly realised how exhausting it must be for victims, to sit and recount all that they as detectives demand. He, simply watching and listening and imagining, feels each question drain a little more from him, an hourglass sliding energy through the tiny gaps of his skin, through each breath that leaves and each tick of the clock that hangs on the wall beside him.

"What did the basement look like?"

Tick

"What had changed from when you were first there to now?"

Tick

"What did you eat?"

Tick

"What did you drink?" 

Tick

"What did you wear?"

"Was there a routine?"

Tick

"Did he have any habits?"

Tick

"Did he ever speak of friends?"

Tick

"Did he ever leave for a length of time?"

Tick

"What did you do with the time?"

Tick

"How was the door locked?"

It steals each breath, and every time he dares a look at her, in the room that gets closer and closer with four people's air and tension, her eyes are a little wearier, her jaw a little more locked in frustration. Fin is nothing if not thorough. Food, drink, clothes, entertainment, conversations, sight, noises, anything that might have revealed where the place is. Or where he might be now.

Finally, she breaks, and it is fierce and wild in its strength, as she stands and the edges of her skin seem to quiver and blur with the anger she holds.

"You didn't find the place for nearly six years, why the hell do you think you're going to now, just because he made me meatballs for dinner a lot and I ate off a blue and white plate? Nothing has changed. You knew who you were looking for before, you know why. I don't know anything more. I don't know why he left me, or where he went, and he never brought food in a convenient grocery bag that listed an address, or left his utilities bill out where I could see it."

And with that, she storms out, the door slamming behind her and shaking the room so hard that if they were as brittle as they feel, they would shatter. Silence reigns for a second, before Tarpley mutters under her breath, "she has a point."

Elliot fights the urge to run immediately after her, chasing her down in an attempt to see if she's okay. Instead he counts to sixty as Fin and Tarpley gather up there things. She's almost out of the door, Fin close behind when he gets to his number and stands, and Fin turns back towards him with both trepidation and relief showing.

There doesn't seem to be much to say, but he holds his hand out to Elliot in a gesture of peace, and it feels weird that suddenly there is a barrier between them. They are all supposed to be on the same side but now there are two camps and Elliot wishes he knew where he belonged. He thinks Fin must feel the same.

"I'll call you if we get anything." Fin says, and Elliot takes the proffered hand before pulling him closer in a brief, one armed hug. He wants him to know that her coming back, him having to do his job, Elliot needing to protect her, that it hasn't changed what friendship they've built over the years. Fin nods, once, then leaves.

When he goes back upstairs, trying not to take them two at a time in his need to reach her, thoughts spin through his head. There is the first real sign of emotion she's shown, the anger at the questions. The lurking feeling that somehow, somewhere, she is holding back. And the ferocious, protective side that threatens to overwhelm the whole time, that wanted to claw the eyes of the questioner out for putting her through it, despite it being Fin, who has been there through it all.

By the time he knocks gently on the open door and pushes it wider, he has compressed all other thoughts down so they lie as a thick, solid layer at the bottom of his mind, and all that remains is the desire to wipe all her pain away.

She's standing at the window yet again, looking out onto the backyard that is still cast with fading light, glittering back against the sharp white of snow, untouched because none have ventured out. Unmarred. Unstained. He can see even before she turns slight at his presence that she's holding herself with tension, hard across her shoulders, and her jaw is stiff when she glances.

"Are you okay?" His voice is low and husky when he asks, like it is him who has been through the trial of questions, and in the wait for an answer the futility of the question runs through his head. Okay. Fine. Words that don't mean anything, but what else can he ask? Was it too hard? Will it tip you over the edge? What are you hiding?

"I'm fine." And it's an answer that comes without meeting his eyes. He wants to push, but can't, he wants to hold her as she seems to shake with tension and he waits for it to overwhelm her, but he can't. So he stands, as awkward as a teenager on a first date, and finally something breaks, but not as he expects. "Can I just... I need some space."

"Sure." It's said with a certainty, a calmness he doesn't feel. Leaving her presence like this, when the struggle is written across her body and what little of her face he sees as she turns away, is painful. But he must, must respect her wishes, and takes the steps required to get out of the room. He has only got another pace away when the door clicks shut behind him. Its the first time, the only time that it has shut since she has come.

It resounds through his head, louder by far within his mind than it was in real life, and he falters, paralysed by the sound. His chest aches with fear, has expelled a breath and seems unable to take more air, and he listens hard for any sound after her shutting it. But none comes, and finally he forces himself to move away. Its like taking a band-aid off bit by bit, the continual stinging, the dread of what comes, skin cells slowly drawn away from the body. It's only when he has got all the way down the stairs, into the movement of the kitchen as Kathy begins making dinner with help from Lizzie, and Eli bounces happily over to him that the band-aid is finally off. Still, the ghost of pain and the tender patch remains.

Trying not to think of her, upstairs and alone and in pain, consumes too much of his mind, and yet he thinks he gives a reasonable display of fatherhood, answering questions and joining in with the gentle teasing and bickering that comes with having all five children, some adults, none acting that way, under the same roof and in the same space.

Dinner is nearly done when Kathy asks him to check if Olivia wants some, that she'll send it up on a tray if she cannot face the 'monster', but when he manages the trip it all comes to nothing, the door is still shut and after two gentle knockings and calling of her name, no reply comes. He daren't open it, invade what peace she may have found, and so creeps away again, shaking his head when he gets downstairs.

Their dinner passes without incident, and almost inevitably the evening progresses with cards scattered across the floor, M&M's as chips which keep getting eaten, and Elliot loses in all his games, wiped out by his poker-fiend children, with only half the story being his mind elsewhere. They settle slowly, and silence dims the lights until, when he looks at each of them, their lines are so blurred he sees them from warm memory. Kathy curled with a book, the pages of which haven't turned much as she's watched their games. Dickie spread so so long on the floor with his eyes shut, having a half hearted bickering match with Lizzie and Kathleen, and Maureen drinking red wine that matches how dark her eyes are in the half light.

It's easy. All so easy, except he cannot be for more than thirty seconds without his mind treading upstairs, to where he imagines her asleep, and for a split moment it is hard to swallow with the urge to check on her resting on his chest.

He holds out. As everyone goes to bed and leave Kathy and him to hang heavy stockings full of candy and unneeded treats. As he turns the lights off and makes his way upstairs, as he pauses at her door for two breaths and then lets himself fall into bed and asleep without another thought creeping through his mind, as exhausted as he is.

Sleep is so deep, so solid and secure that he doesn't dream, hardly moves, and wakes with almost a gasp, feeling that no time at all can have past. However, it reads seven hours since he closed his eyes, and its past six a.m already by the blinking figures of the clock. He flings back the covers suddenly, urgently, like he's missed an appointment and there is that same sick feeling. He cannot believe he has slept for so long. When he glances quickly out of the window, he sees still a couple of cars that must be reporters, braving the night for the chance of a scoop, and a squad car in front, two figures as shadows inside. He thinks how often, it had been them. Before. A long long time ago now.

The nausea that came at the fear of oversleeping doubles, triples, when her door lies wide open, light spilling out and illuminating the empty room it comes from. The bed is made, covers crumpled in waves but in their rightful place, and there is no sign of her. He tries to resist panic, to keep within him the echo of fear that draws him back to times before, but it isn't until he has taken the stairs as quickly as he can in the silent night and stopped at the bottom, that he takes a full breath again.

In the scattered light of fairies, coming from the tree which someone (probably him) has forgotten to turn off the previous night, he can make out figures on the sofa, and moves forward slowly, unwilling to startle. When he gets there, can see clearly the picture, a grin comes unbidden and dancing across his face to match the tree's decorations.

Olivia and Eli are curled, both asleep amongst discarded, crumbled paper that catches the pinpricks of light. A children's book, new and glossy, lies open between them and his son already has chocolate smeared slightly on his face. He can see the scene as clearly as if he had watched, a fly on the wall as one or the other heard footsteps and crept out to see, meeting in the soft darkness and excitement of Christmas morning, and indulging whilst the rest of the house still slept.

Eli has slipped from sitting upright, and is almost resting his head on Olivia's thighs, while her head is turned sideways, cheek against the back of the sofa in sleep. He wants to move closer, step inside the bubble that surrounds them, but is content for a while to let himself sink into their peace as he stands and watches, to cover himself in it, and rejoice in both their existences.

Its only when Eli murmurs slightly in his sleep, almost seeming to stir, and Olivia shifts in response that his heart leaps startlingly into his mouth. In the dim, changing light, he sees the tear tracks staining her cheeks and drifting downwards in varied paths. There are no cries from her, no murmurs of names or new tears seeping, but his heart shatters in the quiet morning light nonetheless.

She leans against the door when it closes behind him, waiting to make out the sound of him leaving. It's not until an eternity has passed that his steps come, but when they do it brings her a choking relief that has nothing to do with him and everything to do with her desperate need for the solitude she has become so used to.

By the time he is downstairs, she considers it safe to move, and she steps lightly over to the bed, almost holding her breath in a need for silence. Lying down on top of the covers, still in her borrowed clothes, she closes her eyes against the afternoon sky and does as she has done so many times before. Like a flower at dusk, she slowly closes herself to the light and the life. Each breath becomes a focus, a number she counts, and within the darkness of her own eyes she stills herself. It's a challenge, a concentration, a relief that allows her to simply obsess over keeping each cell of her body as still as she can, and to let nothing enter her thoughts but the numbers of her own existence.

She squeezes her eyes tight, and watches the bright, twisting lights of the inside of her eyelids as they spin dizzyingly forward and back, bigger and smaller, changing colours and shapes and charting entire, imaginary galaxies she can hide in.

Sleep comes, finally, with the numbers in the hundreds, but it's not dreamless.

_She wakes up with a start, in a long ago bedroom that represents order in a disordered home, to the sound of a door shutting. When she rolls over to look at her clock, she is late, the numbers taunting her, and a sickness leaps through her body at the anger her mother will subject her too. _

_She dresses fast, frantically, and without the journey she is standing in the halls of her school, all the doors are shut, but there is relief in being there that floods all of her. As she walks into a class, the clock on the wall tells her it's midday, and suddenly she remembers. _

_She doesn't go to school any more, it's been years ago that she walked those halls and now she is a cop who is late, who is letting people down by not showing for her shift. She runs, breath burning her lungs, and she doesn't feel as fit as she once did. _

_It's only when she gets there, and looks at her watch that it hits her again. She's not a cop, she's a detective, she was supposed to be in court but now the day will be over and she has not shown. The victim will have sat with no support. A perp loose who shouldn't be. The disappointment across all the people she knows. The nausea, the desperation grows, and when she runs into the squad room, the lights are out and no one is there, and she is alone with the shadows. She is late, they are gone, and the empty desks taunt her. _

She wakes with a jolt.

At first, in the realisation it was a dream, the sickness begins to fade, but when she opens her eyes and sees where she is, it hits harder, faster than in the nightmare. It's black outside, and she holds her breath, seeking out the sounds of life within the house. There are none, and she has slept all afternoon, all evening, through dinner and bedtimes and is now wide awake in the midnight hours, those moments before dawn that she has always remembered as the death hours. The hours a doctor once told her most people will choose to slip away in.

The place, along with the time, unsettles her, and she tries to still her beating heart. Everything feels so wrong as she continues to remember, and she wants to be gone from this place. She comforts herself with thoughts of what she now considers home, of the smell and the trees and the chill that she would shield against by pulling the blankets high over her shoulders, so there was just a gap for air to filter in to her. It is too noisy, too hot, too free here, with a door that opens and faces that have changed so much.

She is just starting to think of the pills the doctor prescribed, the relief they might bring, when she hears the footsteps, quiet and small in the night. A door brushes against carpet like a whisper, feet tread tentatively and there are two gentle creaks as someone begins to go downstairs.

Again she listens, and waits for the steps to reach the bottom before moving. When they finally do, she is out of bed with the same care that the other person has obviously made, slowly placing the, still tender, sole of each foot against the floor, testing before allowing her weight to land.

Moving like this, she makes it all the way downstairs and half way towards the Christmas tree where a figure is huddled, before it turns and sees her. Eli's guilty face flashes upwards when he senses her, and its a mix of relief and fear when he sees who it is.

"Did I make too much noise?" he whispers, looking concerned, and she smiles at him before going over to sit on the sofa nearest to him.

"No. I was awake. I just heard something and thought it might be Santa coming, so I wanted to see."

"Santa already came," and he points to his full stocking, that he had been in the middle of trying to reach.

Olivia knows that she shouldn't. She knows that to watch children open presents is a pleasure for parents, and that Elliot and Kathy have always tried to institute no children wandering around the house before 6am. It's only 5am now. But there is something about the way his eyes sparkle in the light of the trees, his open expression, the knowledge that she can give him something, that compels her to take the stocking down.

"Why don't we open a couple, and then go back to bed." His face is worth the guilt she feels as she does it. They sit down together on the sofa, and he hands her one to rip open before concentrating on his own, but she waits, holding the untouched present in her hand as he reveals his, then handing hers to him.

"Santa left them for you." And he doesn't argue further.

They open three more before he asks her to read his new book, and she does so gladly, feeling his warmth settle against her, his openness draw her in. As she reads the first two lines, he yawns, and she lets it catch her as well, mimicking him.

After two pages, she watches his eyes droop, and hers follow suit. All she can hear, all she can feel, are his breaths, his heat, his heartbeat in the tender, new hours of the day, and it lulls her. She falls back to sleep, and this time she does not remember her dreams.

It's only when she blinks, and feels the pull of salt sealing her eyelids, when she drags her eyes tiredly open and sees Elliot standing over her, when she tastes the tears on her lips, that she realises she has cried in those forgotten hours. She wishes she could remember them. Because she knows why she cries, what she feels she's lost, and to be there in her dreams would be something.

It's that, and the guilt at the ache in her heart to not be here, in a loving family that are so relieved to have her, that greet her Christmas Day, with snow as a layer on the ground, hiding the truth of the world.


	7. Ceaseless

When he sees her eyes open and she blinks once, he cannot help reaching out to them both. A smile graces his face as he touches Eli, his fingers sliding through small curls that are slowly darkening to a pale brown instead of bright, white blonde. He lets the movement carry on so that, just for an instant, her hair is gliding in strands across his hand before she lifts her head from the sofa and brushes aside the sleep and salt that clings to her face. Fear and happiness, apprehension and joy grip him in equal measure in that second, clutching at his chest until he cannot breathe. They are frozen, eyes locked, and he wonders whether she feels all that he does, this heady mix of emotion.

It's then that the house stirs and footsteps creak overhead. Breaking away from her, he escapes to the kitchen and puts coffee on, as Christmas Day truly begins. Eli wakes to the sound of toast springing from the toaster, stretching across Olivia's lap before realising the time and place and shrieking with glee as he runs in circles round his father. Olivia accepts coffee from Elliot without meeting his gaze and sits with her hands curled so tightly that her knuckles are white against the mug. She knows Elliot sees, but is glad the others won't as they stumble downstairs, encouraged by their younger brother who exudes enough energy for all of them.

For a while it is enough simply to sit and watch the household from the outside, with replenishments of coffee from Elliot, who is clearly trying not to hover, and the sights and sounds of stockings being opened stops her mind wandering. Mostly. Nothing is required of her, the kids tease and torment each other with free abandon as they take full advantage of candy before breakfast, and Kathy and Elliot are calm and smiling in the face of their noise. She knows this is a normal life, a normal family, but there is still a trace of tension lurking beneath the surface of her skin. She tries to tell herself that it is just aftershocks of the dream, or excess caffeine spilling through her, but it's not the whole truth. The fact is, this isn't how her Christmas's are. Ever. They are burnt attempts at meals, wine spilled across the kitchen by 11am, and screaming until the neighbours complain. They are bitter coffee, and a microwave meal. And they are...but she closes her eyes to the memory of last Christmas, and what this one was going to be. What it should have been.

The images tormenting her are shattered by Maureen coming close, asking quietly if she'd like to escape to pick out some clothes, and when she is out of the bubble it is a relief to be free from the melting pot of candy and bright lights and happiness that feels so genuine and so eerily shallow in equal measure. As she walks up the stairs, she feels Elliot's eyes follow her, but doesn't look at him.

As she vanishes from view, he thinks he sees it again, just for a second, the shadow that keeps darkening her face, and he feels lost once she has gone. The kids have scattered, a mix of candy and small, nonsense gifts trailing in their wake, and Kathy is starting to clatter pots and pans in the kitchen. He wanders round offering feeble attempts of help, but after one too many times of getting in the way he is shooed out with a stern glare and instructions to stay out of the way.

Drifting into the front room, he sidles to the window and peeps out at the silhouettes of people outside, standing, talking, sitting in cars. There is still a cop out there with his back to the house and he thinks of taking coffee out, but that would mean being confronted by reporters and he's not up to that challenge now. Instead, glancing towards the stairs as if he expects Olivia to suddenly appear, he turns the TV on and immediately mutes its sound before flicking to the news. He feels like a thirteen year old again, glancing around like he's watching an R-rated movie without permission, and it doesn't ease off as he focuses on the screen.

It isn't long before the story rolls around, the picture of Olivia from six years ago flashes up, and then he's watching his own house from the outside, behind a reporter, looking empty and peaceful in the snow. He hears a scream of laughter ring through the rooms as he watches, some trouble or mischief Eli and Dickie are up to, and he smiles to himself. How appearances can be deceiving. It's a strange thing though, to watch stories of his life, of her life, with the sound muted and fear of being caught bubbling just under the surface. He finds it a relief when the report ends and he turns to an old movie, but there are flashbacks of the story that keep playing over and over as the children come and go, and he can't help his mind disappearing upstairs to her.

The tightening of her chest that had started as soon as she'd left the safety of Elliot's presence has begun to ease, sitting on Maureen's bed and trying to concentrate on the clothes she is being shown, but it's still difficult to swallow, and she is awkward. She hasn't had to make a decision in years, and it certainly hadn't mattered what she looked like so now she feels as lost and out of touch as an eighty-year old, looking at a granddaughter's wardrobe. As yet another shirt is pulled out, a sense of longing infuses her for a moment, for the simplicity of a one room existence, but she pushes it down. She's not supposed to want to be back there and she can imagine all too well the expressions on everyone's faces if they knew what she was feeling.

She manages to choose a pair of jeans and a top that seem to meet with Maureen's approval and gets changed, trying not to feel uncomfortable in the blue shirt that is shaped to her figure instead of hiding it, and ventures downstairs, though she doesn't make it all the way. Instead she sits on half way down, in hearing distance of the laughter and murmuring voices of the rest of them, but not quite there or trapped by their warmth.

The smell of food begins to ease throughout the house and it's a heady mix of everything Christmas should be, of turkey and baking and the scent she thinks all sitcoms would have if they were real, something of apple pie and cinnamon. Again, she's struck by how little of her experiences of Christmas are here and she bites her lip to try and stop herself thinking of how this day was due to unfold. She's not sure if she really tastes blood beneath her teeth, or if it's just an illusion, but either way, it works and she stays just about in the present.

Steps move towards her, not sneaking but quiet, a clear attempt not to startle or surprise and Olivia braces herself against the company before a hand appears through the banister next to her, offering a glass nearly full of dark red wine which she takes, gladly. Kathleen leans against the bars, facing the kitchen, and doesn't say anything until Liv takes a sip that is smooth, dark and easy as it slides down her throat. "I know it shouldn't, but it helps," and neither of them look at the other but keep their eyes on Eli, carefully setting the table, on Dickie leaning against the fridge and laughing, on crackers and candles.

"How are things with you?" Olivia manages to get out with the help of another gulp that goes down too fast and burns the back of her throat this time.

"You know. Good days, bad days, mostly stable." And now, only now is Olivia truly able to understand. The days there is no point, that fade away in a mess of darkness and the soft, heavy air that smells of despair and comfort under the covers. Where the weight of your limps mean it's too much effort even to roll over, and the creases of your clothes mar your skin with lines of inactivity. Then the opposite, flipping a coin where neither side is 'normal' and the walls are too tight to contain you and you want to scream and scratch at every surface going, including the skin that is con straining you, and stretching in pain. She meets Kathleen's eyes, and they both take a drink. They both know.

As plates are placed on the mats of the table, Kathleen mutters 'here goes', before people start to move towards the food and the light, and Olivia cannot help but smile at the sentiment that matches her thoughts so exactly, and somehow it doesn't feel quite so hard any more.

And so Christmas Day goes, as if this is the way all festivities are supposed to occur, with only the faintest trace of shadows to the day. It's nothing anyone can put their finger on, but it's there, perhaps most strongly in the looks that Elliot keeps shooting Olivia, brief and subtle, followed by a survey of the rest of his family, as if to make sure each person gets the same amount of attention from him.

He watches as she eats a few mouthfuls before the rest on her plate gets slowly, carefully pushed around, and Kathleen keeps topping up her wine glass when it sinks too low. He wants to say something, to suggest that she slows down, or eats something more, but he bites his tongue. She is here, and that should be enough. It has to be.

Afterwards, Eli rips the paper of the remainder of his presents with free abandon, the ones that are always saved till after lunch, and the others join in with only marginally less enthusiasm. Elliot is barely able to concentrate on what he is opening, a mixture of socks, gloves, and an iTunes gift card that makes Dickie lean over with offers to 'help' him get music that isn't pathetic or lame, as full of trepidation as he is.

It isn't until everyone is settled and intent on their gifts that he makes his move, taking a small, carefully wrapped present from a shelf and offering it to Olivia, whose eyes seem glazed as she gazes at the tree with distance in her expression.

"Here," he says quietly, and she blinks and startles before looking at him, confusion apparent as she reaches slowly for it, bending to put her wine glass down on the floor as she does so. She turns it over once, twice, tracing the pattern of the paper lightly before questioning him with her eyes. He stumbles, "It's not...it's not really a present but...open it...".

Not wanting to hover and watch as she does so, he turns away to look at the rest of the room but is able to pick out no details, just a blur of gentle movement and talk, of lights flashing on the tree and glancing off the paper discarded across the floor. It's like seeing from outside, nose pressed to the glass, and the only thing clear is the sound of Olivia undoing the tape, paper tearing slightly, and creasing as it's off and he can look at her again.

She takes a breath so deep he hears it enter and then leave, a breeze washing between them as her hands begin to shake. He waits, terrified of her reaction, as she keeps her head bowed and her hair hanging forward over her face, and of all the moments he thought might overwhelm him, it's this one that might do it.

She's holding the picture of her and her mother that sat for as long as anyone could remember on her desk in the squad room, that has rested at the top of the box of things Elliot brought home, and the sight of it after so long forms a thick, hard lump in her chest and throat. She's imagined it, closed her eyes and picked out each section of the image she knows so well, and for a long time it has been impossible, each attempt blurred with pain and tears. She had stopped trying in the end, but now it's here and everything vanishes around her until it is just her and her mother smiling, looking full of happiness and love. Time stands still.

When she raises her eyes from it, there aren't the tears he has expected glistening, but a trace of sorrow, of disbelief, of love all mixed into one deep gaze. He wants to say something, to wipe the pain away, to wish a million times for her to be happy, but he can't. She looks back down again, and now there is a smile on her face, and suddenly that's enough.

"Thank you," the whisper comes, unheard by all but him within the hubbub of the room and he reaches out to her, once, not making contact before his hand drops to his side and he takes a step away. He cannot bear that she will pull back and not allow him to offer comfort. She rarely would, before, but this...this is different. Still, he doesn't know how far they can go.

"That's okay," he replies, and it's not what he wants to say but all he is able to. When he returns to his chair, he pretends not to notice that she sits with both hands clutching at the frame of the picture for a long, long time, not reacting at all to anything around her. In fact, she doesn't move until the rest of the family are cheering at a battle between the twins, playing a new game Dickie got for Christmas, everyone's attention entirely focused on the TV screen.

Kathy stands, goes towards the kitchen and Olivia follows, sidling carefully close to the wall to avoid anyone noticing. The day has been exhausting, endless, the wine hasn't helped the tiredness and sitting looking at her mother has overwhelmed her mind. She is trapped in some strange, twisting dream, her skin feels numb, and her anxiety has an edge that is nagging painfully through her.

"Thank you for...all this," Olivia says quietly, gesturing to the remnants of the day still spread around the kitchen, and Kathy waves a hand in dismissal.

"It's our pleasure." She's starting to clear up, stacking glasses in the dishwasher while extravagant laughter filters through from the other room. Olivia is awkward, shoving her hands in the slightly too tight pockets of jeans that aren't hers, and tries to get words out. Kathy stops, with a plate in her hands, and asks, "Do you need anything?"

"Have you got some tylenol or something? I've got a headache, and the cuts on my feet are hurting a bit." The truth is both are correct but neither are her main problem. The headache has built up over the day with the noise and the pummelling of her senses, and swallowing the mixed emotions that have surfaced, but not been let out. The grazes do sting, a bit, but they are starting to itch in healing, and give her little problem. It's the entirety of her skin that feels uncomfortable, everything aches and it's now all too much for her.

"Sure." Kathy reaches up to a cupboard and pulls down a box, but as she does a paper bag falls with it, landing on the counter with a rattle. As both of them look at it, Olivia knows exactly what's inside and the image of pills scattered across the surface flashes into her head. Xanax or Ativan, Ambien or Lunesta, with her name on the labels and relief given in minutes. She keeps staring, until Kathy puts it back and hands her a strip of tylenol, of which she takes two dry, the bitter taste grounding her for a minute.

They don't help though. Instead of everything becoming comfortably numb, it all sharpens, until the noise, the raw light, the laughter and jarring, spiking sounds from the TV make the world unbearable and she quickly mutters her apologies before retreating into the darkness of her room.

Elliot follows her quickly, afraid of the edgy, trapped look in her eyes. Her door is still open but all the lights are off and he can only make out her shadow standing at the window with glare from the snow casting cold, white light across the floor. There is a tremble in her stance, with her hands wrapped tight around her body and he raps quietly on the door with the back of his knuckles. "Liv?"

She shrugs briefly, turning her head away from the window but not far enough to see him where he stands. "I'm okay El. I'll be okay." He can tell she means for it to come out firm, but her words sound like snowflakes falling into the Hudson, brief and quickly vanishing. After a second, it's like she has never spoken.

He doesn't know what to say, what to do. All he's aware of is that its the evening of Christmas and she's standing in front of him, tired and broken and being as strong as he has even seen her. The photo, of her and her mother, is lying on the bed face upwards, so they smile at the ceiling, and he gestures to it as he turns to leave.

"Merry Christmas Liv," and he pulls the door behind him, flicking the light so the landing brightens as he walks across it, and follows him down the stairs.

"Merry Christmas," she whispers, long after he has gone, into the nothingness.

There is a drab, weary quality to the squad room as Fin walks in the next morning, juggling two cups of coffee and a newspaper, all of which he deposits on his desk before slumping in the chair. It isn't five minutes before his partner, Paul, slopes in and shrugs his coat off, gladly reaching for the coffee and drinking long and desperately from it. Fin chuckles, "you look rough, man," and Paul scowls as he logs into the computer.

"You try having Christmas with my family and get out looking better like this." It's the usual grumbling, nothing new at all, but it passes the first couple of hours of morning and Christmas has banished within half an hour of them walking in.

The phone rings for the first time that day just after 10am and Fin reaches for it without even looking up from the paper, grunting his name without the slightest thought of who might be on the other end. "Tutuola."

Pausing as he listens to the person, he quickly grabs for the nearest pen and paper and beings to scrabble down almost unintelligible scrawls across it. "Hang on sir, let me get this straight. You say it's your sister who thinks she recognises the man?" He writes something else down. "Could I speak with her?" Moving the phone away from his mouth for a second, he mutters to Paul, "might have a lead on Hartman's place," and he rips a part of the paper off and slides it across the desk to him.

It's another fifteen minutes before Fin has taken enough information, and walks towards Capt. Price's office with Paul following behind, both looking tense and anxious in equal measure. Fin fills both of them in quickly.

"A guy who got one of those posters we sent out about Hartman, had his sister over for Christmas, from further upstate. She saw it for the first time, and recognised him. Says he's got a cabin he's been living in up there for nearly six years now, goes into her store every couple days for groceries. Always came in at holidays for extra, would leave a bottle of wine for her. He was due to pick up his food Christmas Eve. Never showed."

"We got an address?" Capt. Price asks, and Fin nods. "Okay, get up there. I'll call the local guys, see what I can find out, smooth the way for you."

During the drive up, on empty slush covered roads that seem to never end, he considers calling Elliot but restrains himself, reasoning that the last thing any of them need is the stress of a false alarm. There isn't enough to distract him though and he flicks the phone open too many times to count before his mind begins to drift. He wonders how Christmas has been for John, who he know celebrates it for the sake of his wife, with their son at an almost perfect age for such magic. He wonders for Don, who he drove over to see for the afternoon as they watched old movies and said little about life, thoughts elsewhere. And he tries not to think of El and Liv, who both seemed on edge on Christmas Eve, who might have settled or quietly fallen during a day of family and noise.

Most of all, he tries not to wonder about what they will find.

Finally they pull off the main road down a track until nothing can be seen but snow laden trees gathered in thick clumps all around. It is eerily silent as they drive, unbroken until they get to the end where only a squad car pulled up near the cabin breaking the spell of emptiness. The local cops get out when they arrive, walking towards the car with hands outstretched in amiable, if slightly bewildered greetings.

"Anyone in?" Paul asks after the introductions, nodding towards the building, but both guys shake their heads.

"No, no sign of life. We had a quick look around but no further." Fin surveys their surroundings further as Paul continues to talk.

"You know anything about the guy who owns this place?"

"Most we can gather, land is registered to a Henry Johnston, but that was some years ago. Didn't find nothing else," the guy says, shrugging. "Need anything else?"

"Did our search warrant come through?" Fin is torn between wanting to look around, and wanting to leave, but whatever they find, they're going to do it all right. Both cops nod, and he thanks them before starting to walk towards the place. Both car doors slam behind them, and then there is nothing again, just snow and trees and grey sky overhead.

The steps to the front door creak underfoot, the door is unlocked when they try it, and the floorboards groan as they walk into the main room. It reaches from the front to the back of the property, with a door at each end, wood panelling on all four walls and it's bare but strangely homely. The small kitchen area at one end is neat, with well used crockery, and when Fin opens the fridge there is food inside, milk not yet out of date, slices of cheese and a pack of bacon with half gone. The few remaining slices of bread he finds are just starting to go mouldy, faint specks of blue creeping in from the outside edge. Someone has been here, not long before, but long enough.

Paul looks through the doorway at the other end, past a sofa and a wood burning stove, and comments that it's the bathroom. Fin hears him move a couple of things, but then comes back out, clearly having found nothing.

Both walk to the other end of the room and go into the last room, the bedroom. It's like the rest of the cabin, clean and neat, the bed made with two or three blankets that are the only real brightness to the house, in red and orange patterns. When Fin looks in the wardrobe, there are still clothes, shoes lining the bottom, and a watch lies on the bedside table. There is no sign of anything missing, of someone packing in a hurry. It's as if whoever lived here has simply vanished and, knowing what he does, it sends chills up his spine. It feels too much like walking into Olivia's apartment, that morning, with everything still in its place.

They leave the house again, walk round the side with care, and it's when they get to the back that he sees it, steps cut away from the ground, down the side of the cabin, with a door at the bottom that leads underneath. There is a lock on the door, the kind that would need a security code, but it's propped open so there is a dark strip of black between the door and the frame. A key, in the keyhole underneath, seems innocent and strangely out of place beneath the much stronger defences. Fin swallows and looks at Paul once before pushing the door, which is heavier and more substantial than he expects.

It's like a weird form of deja vu, walking into a room you've had described to you, pictured clearly in your head but not seen. And it is, without a doubt, the place Olivia had spent the last five years. Fin feels a surge of emotion hit his chest but pushes it down and starts to move slowly around. It's hard though, to not imagine her as he takes in the details.

There is a bed against one wall, made up with the same bright blankets as on the bed upstairs, worn but clean. A stool acts as a bedside table on which rests a glass of water half drunk, a book face down and nearly finished, and an iPod with headphones wrapped neatly round it. A rail of clothes is by the end of the bed and he glides his hands through: one pair of jeans, one pair of sweats, two t-shirts, three sweaters. A small pile of underwear and socks on the floor underneath. All normal objects, of a normal life.

On one wall there is a small window, high up by the ceiling, with bars underneath it and the chimney of another wood burning stove leads out of the wall next to it. Two comfy chairs sit facing the light and the fire, and he blinks and sees them sitting there, with flames dancing in the darkness. In the middle of the room there is a chess table, a game in play. He itches to move the pieces but doesn't.

Behind a screen, in the opposite corner to the bed, they find a tin bath, a portable toilet camping toilet and a sink, not plumbed in. A hairbrush, toiletries and a towel sit on a shelf overhead, and Fin flinches before turning away. It's all too real, and too civilised, and it somehow makes it harder to think of her here, comfortable, than in any of the nightmares he had ever had of her.

The word home pops into his head without invitation, with the details of the room searing themselves into him. A rug on the floor, a few faded pictures on the wall, a shelf with well-read books lined up. He feels like he's an intruder, and though he's never been claustrophobic, he is now, and Paul obviously feels the same, gravitating towards the door and saying, "let's get the CSI guys in here."

Fin nods, goes to leave, but as he does so something catches his eye on the floor by the bed, almost hidden in the shadows underneath it. When he moves closer, it is what he thinks it is, and he closes his eyes for a second. Two time-lines flick through his head, charting the repercussions of the choice he has to make, and then he glances back at Paul. His partner isn't looking, is already stepping outside, and he picks the object up, putting it in his pocket quickly. He knows he is wrong, hiding evidence, but he cannot help think that it is the least he owes her.

They walk out, and once they're off the property and back to the guys in the squad car, they call reinforcements. Soon enough, CSI are on their way to dissect the place, and Capt. Price is preparing to speak to the Feds, now that it's painfully clear Olivia was taken and held out of state. Still, he's been told to continue the investigation until they're on board and is about to drive to the nearest store, where their informant lives. But first, he has another call to make.

Boxing Day has been quiet in the Stabler household, everyone sated and lethargic from the previous day. The kids snap and snipe at each other, doors have been slammed and there is a low vibration of deep bass coming from the boys room where Dickie is holed up. Kathy doesn't bother with meals, it's every person for themselves and leftovers are what is on offer, which Elliot has quietly nagged Olivia to eat. She humoured him for a while, accepting toast and half a turkey sandwich, but by the time he comes up to her again at mid-afternoon, while she flicks aimlessly through TV channels and recognises far too few people, she has to close her eyes and take a breath to avoid being rude. Still, he sees the tension in her shoulders, the set of her jaw, and the phone call gives him an excuse to back away, fast.

He glances at the caller ID before picking up and greeting Fin with apprehension, and his stance changes as he listens to the information, his stomach sinking with dread and weariness. "Do you need anything from us?" He's encompassing them both in the statement, he knows it's her they will want, but it makes him feel less useless like this. Fin declines for now, says that the Fed's will be taking over but SVU will be working alongside them, and they're likely to want her there once CSI are done, to try and jog her memory about where Hartman might have gone. Until he says that, Elliot has almost forgotten that this is still a manhunt, he's been so focused on Olivia, and his fist has clenched unconsciously at the thought of Hartman. It's a relief when Fin hangs up.

Elliot is acutely aware, when he puts the phone down, of the throb of the music that sounds like his heartbeat racing through him, like the chill across his skin at the thought of what he has to do now. He braces himself.

Olivia is still gazing uninterestedly at the TV, but when she glances at him she must see something, because her whole body freezes. It's either that, or she knows him too well, even after all the years. With a flash of realisation that makes nausea swell, he finds himself sitting down like a cop in front of a victim, and there is something in her look that calls him on it, but he's too far gone now and he has to tell her.

"Fin called," he says, trying to reduce the worry in his voice and keep it to plain facts, like he's not terrified of her reaction. "They...they've found the place," it feels almost impossible to end the sentence, but her eyes have widened like deer in the headlights and he needs to keep talking, "...the place where you've been." The words are pale in the face of what he is describing, the significance of the sentence, but they both know. Fear flashes, and the blood drains from her.

"Are they sure?" A chill goes down his spine as he sees how scared she is, how out of control the news has left her, but he doesn't know what to do, so just nods.

"Yeah, pretty sure." They both know he means it's a definite, that they are just waiting for the forensics to be finished, and sitting here he cannot decide whether it's better or worse to have his experience. To know this routine like that back of his hand. To know that she knows it as well.

"They've been there? Looked around?" Elliot nods again and she is ice, barely able to move. He sits, tense, ready to act with comfort, to grab for tissues if she starts crying but he's not prepared for the violence of her movement, her stumbling through to the kitchen and vomiting into the sink. He's left a few steps behind, and by the time he reaches her she's retched three or four times. His instinct is to do something, to sweep her hair back from her face, but she turns away from him slightly as she wipes her mouth.

"Did he say anything else?" Elliot isn't sure what she's asking, he feels like he's missing something but he can't figure out what it is and her back tells him nothing.

"No, CSI are just starting." He knows she'll know all this, and there there is the possibility of her going up there, but she doesn't breach the topic yet, as concerned as he is about the severity of her reaction. He had expected silence, tears, sadness or anger, but not this. Not this.

"I don't feel so good," she says, after a minute of deep breathing during which he can see her fight not to throw up again, "I'm gonna go lie down." She doesn't look him in the face as she leaves, like she's being chased by wolves up the stairs, and he's left behind to try and figure out what on earth just happened.

When he ventures upstairs after an hour of pacing the rooms and hearing nothing, dusk is quietly settling round the house and the kids are emerging towards the kitchen. Looking into her room, he sees her curled as tight as possible, the bedside light on and the curtains still open, but he can't tell if she's awake or asleep, and he's reluctant to possibly disturb her. Still, he stays watching for minutes, but she doesn't move and finally he gives up. By the time the family filter to bed, she still hasn't moved and he goes to bed unsettled, unable to relax for a long, long time, even when Kathy murmurs to him that everything will be okay.

She hasn't slept at all. The thought of Fin being there, in the place where only she and he have been for years, has sent an uncontrollable reaction rushing through her. After the vomiting, the running, she has lain in one place to try and stop the world from spinning frantically, and quiet the voices in her head. She used to do it for hour after hour, trying to stop the thoughts and memories, trying to trick her mind into stopping along with her body. Eventually she would fall asleep, at three or four or five am, but tonight she just waits for the noises of the house to die down, listening to her heartbeat that runs fast when the thought of Fin, in her room, comes back into her head.

Eventually, silence reigns and she slides out of bed, careful with her footsteps as she leaves the room, freezing when the floor creaks to listen for any sign of life stirring. When she finally makes it downstairs, she goes to the back door and rests her hand on it's handle, barely able to see the snow outside in the darkness. She thinks what it would be like, to walk through it for hours, to lie down and let it cover her. For everything to freeze.

She lets her hand drop. It feels too much like the walk she has done just days before, and for a second she wonders why she looked for help at all, why she stopped and called him. She could have kept walking, until the road ran out. Never ending.

The trapped feeling is growing but everything moves in slow motion, even her blinks, and the world will not stop spinning. Nausea swells, she's fifteen again, has thrown out all the bottles in their place and she's waiting for her to get back and find out, to start screaming until the neighbours bang the door to make it stop. And thinking of her mother just makes it worse, and brings other ideas to her mind, though not of the wine that has burnt her throat and made her lose control, not gain it. Alcohol offers nothing but memories, so instead she reaches up the cupboard, glances behind her even though she knows no one is there. The bag rustles under her hand, so loud in the midnight dark, she tips the bottles onto the surface and stands each upright with their labels facing outwards, declaring her name. Offering to make it all go away.


	8. Sleepless

"Liv?" His voice breaks in waves around her, shattering the spell, and she jumps, scattering the bottles across the counter. He's standing the shadows with dark circles heavy underneath his eyes ad guilt makes her move, trying to block the evidence with her body. It's pointless though, too late, he comes close and his worry floods across her skin. "Liv?"

He has stopped, arm length from her. She won't, can't look him in the eye, captivated by the floor beneath them and watches him move as he leans around her to stand the pill bottles up with one hand. When he's done, his hand brushing gently up one arm, leaving it resting on her shoulder and ducking to try and see her face. Slowly, carefully, she raises her eyes until they meet his, with concern trapped within them.

"It's okay. To need help." But even as he says it, wanting to reassure her that – given the circumstances – needing something to take the edge off is expected, a defensive air washes across her and she forces herself to stand a little straighter.

"I don't want to take them. I was just checking they were still there." It seems impossible to explain even to herself, the promise of relief with actually achieving it, but perhaps he will understand. Perhaps it's like seeing a perp, bloodied and broken on the ground, without ever doing it. He nods as if he gets it and rubs her arm once, heating up that small patch of cold skin.

"Okay. What do you need?" He's known something is wrong ever since he woke suddenly out of a dream to the sound of her footsteps on the stairs. There was no doubt in his mind that it was her, he knows her movements better than he knows his own, even now. He listened hard, charting her progress by the familiar sounds of the house, and it was only when things got quiet that his worry consumed him and he was forced out of bed. Now he's looking and her, and he knows he was right to worry. She is tense, anxious eyes wide and frantic, and the effort she makes to contain it all is clearly visible in the tightness of her jaw and the lock of her neck.

"I don't know," she shrugs, with a feeble attempt at a smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "I can't sleep, and I can't stop thinking." Inwardly, she begs for him not to ask what's on her mind, what spins round and round, because she can't tell him. She can't face the horror in his face. But he doesn't.

Instead he offers, "how about a movie?". She considers it, people acting lives to a conclusion, with an end in sight, but after a second she shakes her head.

"Not distracting enough." He goes through options in his mind and she bites her lip, tucks her hair behind one ear and gives him apologetic looks for the trouble she thinks she's causing. Finally he gets inspiration and goes to a drawer, taking out a pack of cards. "Come on, you can beat me at gin rummy."

She can't move at first as he sits and starts to deal, just watching him. The pain has swelled within her, the thought of sitting across from someone else and playing a game to pass the night away. It's all too much like a past life she needs to keep hidden, but with a different man, a different game. Still, she has nothing better to do, no argument against it, and she cannot bear to lie and think of facts. Faced with either as her only option, sliding into the chair and picking up her cards is easy.

They play for hours, until the red numbers on the oven glare just gone five am, and both are yawning as they place cards out on the table. Elliot is stiff, his shoulders seized up and sore, but he wills himself to show no discomfort, or shift too many times in his seat. At first Olivia had seemed uncertain, withdrawn with one leg brought up and shielding himself, but slowly she has come out of her daze, taking pleasure in beating him and releasing a smile that sometimes comes near to the Olivia of before. He can't break that spell, that makes his heart jump, that gives light to her face again. He won't break that.

She wins again, he goes to reshuffle, but she puts out a hand to stop him. "We should go to bed."

She's quiet, with almost defeat in her tone and he asks, "Are you sure? Cos I can carry on." The shake of her head is a definite.

"No. It's late -" and the smile is wry when she looks at the time, "or early." He acquiesces, trying always not to second guess what he should do, and lets her go up first as he puts lights out downstairs and sneaks glances as his children through open doors. Stretching out in bed feels comfortable, a quiet reassurance grown by the night's activities, and sleep welcomes him easily.

He wakes, barely an hour late, to a scream that stills his blood with fear and makes him move before it's even finished. It's her. He doesn't care that his speed will wake others as he moves across the landing, or that he slams the light on abruptly as he enters her room, but she hasn't woken. She is shaking, with beads of sweat rising on her forehead that are cold when he sweeps a hand across her face and cups her head. "Olivia," his voice is low and urgent, but she doesn't react. "Liv!"

Both hands are on her shoulders when she wakes – suddenly – thrashing out blindly so he has to catch her wrists to stop her hitting him. She yells in fear, a choking sound before his words of comfort make it through the nightmare. He feels her realise it is him before he sees it, the fury and terror in her muscles relaxing beneath his palms but still clear in her eyes as she looks at him.

"Dad?" Eli is standing at the door, a matching expression of fear across his face, with Lizzie and Kathy coming up behind him. He turns as he sits on the bed but doesn't get up, or let go of Olivia.

"It's okay. Go back to bed. Everything's alright," and he nods at both Lizzie and Kathy for them to take him. As they do so there is an unsettled look in Eli's eyes that he knows won't be washed away as easily as this, and he can hear their quiet words fade as he turns back to Olivia who is still shaking beneath his touch. He repeats himself.

"It's okay," and drops her wrists carefully to reach an arm around one shoulder and pull her closer to him. She resists at first, but he keeps his hold there and – bit by bit- she relaxes against his body, so he can wrap both arms tight around her and whisper into her hair, "You're safe now. You're safe now." Repeating the words again and again settles his own racing heat, and he can only hope it does so for her. Certainly the tension eases somewhat from her body, her breathing slows, and her weight leans onto him.

"Better?" She doesn't answer immediately but then gives a minute movement of her head that is enough. He stays with her, as true morning light floods with grey across the room and is completely broken, the shadows chased out of the room.

His smell, his weight, the cotton against her is slowly enough to dispel the memories, the nightmare that has twisted and turned in her head, and seemed so real. It is suddenly walking into a place of your past and blanking all the bad from it, so there are just golden images floating through you. It is hours and hours with him, feeling safe with him beside her, and imagining it for nights on end in the emptiness, with just the wind outside. He's here, now, and she lets herself fall into him until it's too much and she has to push herself away from his hold with the excuse of a shower. 

When the kids look outside after breakfast, they report that not only is there more snow layered on the ground, but that the number of press standing there is significantly reduced. Elliot hasn't told his children yet that her place of captivity has been found but he images that the media know, and that's where they've gone. It will be something new to talk about, other than standing outside a house where nothing seems to happen. That, or their attention has gone from the story altogether.

Reluctantly, he agrees for the older kids to go and see friends, except Lizzie who declares that it's too cold outside, and anyway her best friend is out of town. The others get strict instructions that they are not to say anything, to anyone, about Olivia. They roll their eyes but solemnly promise – he knows they wouldn't have but it's better to be safe, he thinks.

The house is blissfully quiet then, with only two kids within, nothing begging to be done, and it's the kind of day he would have relished years ago. That he should rejoice in now, with her here. Except he can't relax, as Olivia paces. She's antsy, agitated, picking books and magazines up and reading half a page before discarding them and trying something else. Finally she asks Kathy for something to do and folds laundry, before offering to wash the kitchen floor. Kathy looks to Elliot for guidance, who shrugs, out of his depth, and so they leave her to it.

Both are sitting in the deep quiet of the front room when she wanders through again, accompanied by Eli who loudly begs his parents to go outside and play. Kathy shakes her head, laughing when he nags her and directs him to ask Elliot, who is half-heartedly reading a paper from before Christmas. His son's pleading eyes are almost – but not quite – enough to overrule his tiredness and his desire to keep an eye on Olivia. He doesn't expect what happens next.

"I'll take him, if you like," Olivia says, and Eli immediately jumps from resting on the arm of his dad's chair.

"Cool. Can we have a snowball war?" he asks, and she chuckles softly at his enthusiasm, her eyes soft as she looks down at him.

"Sure." And only then does she meet Elliot's startled gaze for a second, before turning to Kathy, "If that's okay?"

"Of course it is," Kathy says before Elliot is even sure what is happening, directing Eli to get his coat and boots and telling Olivia where she can find some that will fit her as well. Olivia doesn't look at Elliot as she gets ready, although he is staring with undeniable concern at her, and goes outside into the bright, crisps air without a second glance, all her attention on a chattering Eli.

Elliot sits unnaturally still in his chair and counts to thirty before he moves over to the window, pulling back the curtains and looking into the clean, white day. Eli is charging around, shrieking with happiness as Olivia stands in the centre of the yard and carefully palms snowballs. He can see, even from here, that she mostly misses on purpose and the ones coming back rarely hit her, but both almost glitter in the snow, laughter rising giddily upwards to the sky. Kathy comes over to join him and leans against his side for a minute, watching with matching laughter quiet under each breath before pulling quietly at his arm.

"Leave them. They'll be okay." It's that word again, okay, and he wants to tell his wife that she's wrong, and Olivia isn't. Not really. He knows... he knw her enough to sense when something is wrong, and of course something is, but he cannot shake the concern that bubbles just beneath his skin. Still, he can see Kathy's point, she is as okay as she is going to be, and he should take what he has been given for now. 

Thankfully, the phone rings and draws him away, before he has to make the decision to stop watching for himself. He is expecting Fin, with more news of their discovery, but is surprised.

"Hi Elliot," and he smiles as he hears the voice.

"Hey John. How you doing?"

"I'm good. Drowning in the commercialisation of the holidays, but other than that..." Elliot can hear John's wife, Rebecca, groan in the background and laughs slightly, which John picks up on.

"Well you may laugh my friend, but it's you that pays for it. I dread to think how much you spent on gifts this year, that will be forgotten by the New Year."

"Don't listen to the old humbug, El!" Rebecca calls from the background, and for a minute all he can hear is them arguing amiably, before John turns his attentions back to Elliot.

"Ignore my dearest wife. How are things?" The question wouldn't sound any different in meaning to an outsider, but Elliot can pick up the slight change of tone, the depth to the question, and he looks around him, catching a brief glimpse of Olivia and Eli outside when he does.

"You know...getting there." He's not sure how to describe the atmosphere, the unease Olivia clearly feels and the strong pretence she – all of them – are making at being normal and okay, but something of the truth must slip into his voice as John replies.

"Things will improve. Slowly. It's only been a few days, after all." Elliot nods to himself, and doesn't answer back that it feels like a year instead.

"Did Fin call you?" He asks instead.

"Yeah, last night. Told me a few things, no details though. Does Olivia know?" The image of her face flashes into Elliot's sight as he replies,

"I told her as soon as I heard."

"How did she take it?"

He sighs, still seeing her. "Not great."

"It was bound to be difficult." John says, and again Elliot feels out of his depth with how to describe her reaction to the news, the intensity of it. He thinks John will say it was to be expected, and he knows that, but still...

"Anyway, I'll let you get on with your horde. Wouldn't want to keep you from quality time," and Elliot snorts down the phone at him.

"Thanks." 

Olivia and Eli come in after over two hours outside, most of which Elliot has spent pretending not to lurk in the shadows and watch them, while Kathy shoots weary, amused looks at him. Both have rosy red cheeks, common on Eli but they light up Olivia's face and bring it more colour than he has seen in her since her return. They discard cold, wet clothing and come to Kathy and Elliot, both glowing and Eli talking as fast as he can of battles they've had, of the games they've played. Olivia is quiet, tiredness in her eyes, but a smile remaining.

He thinks she looks almost alive again, and watches as she sits down, curling her legs underneath and briefly closing her eyes, and happiness swells in a cloud that fills the room. He thinks he could taste it, sweet and heady, if he tried. Not a minute passes before Eli has commandeered her lap, handing a book for her to read, that she opens her eyes to. "Why don't you read to me instead," she suggests, and Eli leaps on the idea as he does everything, with both feet.

Elliot's eyes close to the sound of turning pages and his son's tentative voice, dozing away for a few minutes. It's not until Kathy nudges him and he drags his eyes open that he realises silence has fallen across the room, and the reading has stopped. Sure enough, they have slipped asleep in a mirror image of Christmas morning, Eli sprawled across her lap and the book discarded on the floor. Kathy's face is soft and gentle as she looks, and Elliot can feel him gazing at them both in the same way. The first person to hold his son, who he never thought to see again, asleep with him in her arms. Here. It doesn't seem real, and he thinks he could watch them forever.

* * *

Annoyance is searing through Fin, sitting next to the Federal agent now one of those assigned to finding Hartman, now it has been undoubtedly confirmed Olivia was held out of state. The man is too well dressed, too formal and too cold in his approach to the case, and it's pissing him off. He is aware – in the back of his mind – that the man is only being professional, that he can't be expected to carry the same emotion that Fin does, but that doesn't help. Neither does the fact that, correct or not, he feels as though the guy is treating him as merely a dogsbody who doesn't know what he is doing. Still, he keeps his anger in check, remembering why they are here.

"So, this is the man you know?" The woman looks eagerly at the picture the Fed pushes across the table towards her, seemingly desperate to help, her face open and almost eager.

"Yes, that's him. David." She says, nodding twice in confirmation.

"Did you know his name is actually Daniel Hartman?" The questions are asked in monotone, a stark difference to the exuberance of their interviewee.

"No, I knew him as David. David Lewis."

"How long have you know him?"

"Gosh, it must be coming up for six years now, this spring. Showed up one day, I remember it was around the time of my niece's birthday, such a beautiful girl, and bought some groceries. Next time he came in, he asked a few questions. I never thought anything of it." She's speaking quickly, sentences that run into each other as they spill from her.

"What kind of questions?"

"He's a very nice man, very quiet and polite you know. He asked where the nearest hardware store was, and where he could use a computer. For tools, I sent him to Mike Miller, down the road a way, sour faced old grump but he's the only place around..." she rambles on through the characteristics of various people, including the librarian and her son, as Fin notes the places that she told him to go. The man clears his throat, and she stops.

"So he only bought groceries from you?"

"Why yes, what else would he buy?"

"Groceries for one? Nothing else? Women's clothes, extra food?" She shakes her head, with either pretend sorrow, or accentuated real feelings.

"No, nothing like that. The poor woman, we had no idea any else was up there, and for so long. Poor woman." She looks like she's going to start crying, and Fin would like to shake her, for daring to express such pointless emotions. The Fed just keeps asking questions, ignoring her drama.

"Is there somewhere he could go?"

"Sure. I'm the closest but he could go to the next town over, they have a store as well. I never asked him if he did. I don't care what other folks do." Fin would like to snort, but keeps it down, thinking of the look he would have given any other partner at that statement.

"Do you keep receipts, credit card slips?"

"Of course I do, but it won't do you no good. Mr Lewis...or whoever...always paid cash."

"Is that unusual?"

Nervousness takes over her now, and she stops looking eager to give information, suddenly unwilling to meet either of their gazes. Fin interjects, "You won't get anyone into any trouble Ma'am. We just want information on this man."

Slowly, like teeth being pulled, she says "There's a few people do work round here for cash, 'specially during the hunting season. He was known as a hard-working man, good at most things, honest."

The Fed takes over again. "When is the last time you saw him?"

Her face brightens, glad to be out of choppy waters. "Few days before Christmas, and he seemed fine. Just his normal self. Complimented me on my dress, it was new you know. I was ever so impressed he noticed."

"Did he ever mention anywhere he might go, any friends or visits he made?"

"No sir, can't say that he did. But he wasn't a talkative man, like I said, kept to himself..."

She goes on like this for a while longer, and when the interview is finished, they have come away with little of help, other than he seemed to have arrived around the time of Olivia's disappearance. That he was a nice man, a quiet man, an honest man. Fin wants to shout the truth to the woman in the store, to the people walking down the street with curious looks towards them both but he knows in a place like this, it will get all round soon enough. It's the kind of town that makes him feel claustrophobic, despite the sky overhead, and the air without the taste of pollution.

It doesn't matter anyway, Hartman would be mad to show up here again.

They go next to the hardware store, where they get nothing from the man who seems to only communicate in grunts and glares, the exact opposite of the woman. Frustrated now, they drive to the next town over, and when they show Hartman's photo to the man behind the store in their grocery store, he nods in recognition.

"Sure I know him, comes in every week or so, buys groceries. Don't know anything more about him though."

"How much would he buy?"

"Stuff to last a single man a week, nothing unusual."

There is nothing more, and they go back to the car. Fin sighs, tired of the leads they have to follow that go nowhere. They are chasing facts they can already guess at, confirming the subterfuge that has been occuring for nearly six years now, and has enabled no one to suspect. Buying two sets of groceries to disguise her existence, working for cash, staying quiet and not drawing suspicion. It's so simple, so easy for him to pull off but the knowledge fills him with exhausted sorrow. The effort, the secrecy, all seems so pointless.

"Crazy son-of-a-bitch," the Fed says as he begins to drive, and Fin grunts in agreement, despite his animosity. "Why the hell did he do all this? Why not just kill her?"

The lack of answers, the sharp honesty that recognising the ease in which Hartman could have disposed of Olivia, fills the car with heavy gloom as they make their way back to the cabin. The basics are the same as when Fin first drove up: the snow, the trees, the dark wood of the building, but all else is different. There are tracks, hundreds of feet trodden through the snow, and bright yellow crime tape everywhere. Trucks, cars, people in uniform form an hubbub of activity, in which Fin spies his captain and his partner standing talking with the Fed's partner.

"How is everything detective?" Capt. Price asks formally as they approach, and Fin sizes up the situation. They are at the beginning of this attempt at cooperation, finding their feet, and he won't screw this up over animosity and territory. Quickly, he fills them all in. Once they're done, the other Fed nods behind to the building and gestures to himself and Fin's partner.

"We'll stay up here for the rest of today, wait for the crime scene guys to finish up their prelims. Meet you back in the city, your precinct, tomorrow morning? We can go over everything again, barring any breakthroughs."

Capt. Price nods in agreement and signals to Fin that he can go. As he moves away, back towards the car, the other Fed adds, "Oh, and then we'll need to speak to Olivia again." He says it matter of factly, an offhand comment, but Fin stops in his tracks like he's hit a wall. He's know this was coming too, but he cannot help but turn and look at him. He meets Fin's glare, his defensive stance, without backing down. "We have to, Detective." The stand-off lasts a few more seconds before the guy weakens slightly, and lowers his voice. "We're not out to make things worse for Detective Benson. We just want to catch the guy who stole five years of her life. That's all."

Perhaps it's the use, the remembrance, of her title rather than her name, or just that he sees it is all he will get, but he relaxes his shoulders and turns away, to trudge through the snow that is unscathed by feet still.

The drive back to the city is quiet, calming, but he waits for the events of the day to settle in his mind before he pulls over to call Elliot. When he answers, Fin can tell immediately that they match each other in exhaustion. It is weaved into every word Elliot says, but neither comment on it, the same old game: don't tell, and it won't be real. Instead, Fin fills him in on the day, the usual grating against other authorities, the interviews, the lack of information. Perhaps he's not supposed to talk, but he doesn't care. This is Olivia.

Both men are too tired to talk much after the basic facts, and they hang up quickly. He braces himself to focus on the drive, but as soon as he pulls out, his mind cannot help straying away from the road. It flits to what is still hidden in the pocket of his coat, unworn today and lying safe in the trunk of his car. The meaning, the answer, the question, he goes in circles until dusk creeps in and the lights of the city call him home. 

Olivia is standing in the doorway when Elliot hangs up the phone, and it is as it always was with them. She knows that it is something more about her, about the case, simply from looking at him, and he could swear on his life that she wasn't there to listen to his end of the conversation. He would have sensed her.

He smiles, trying to make it seem sincere and believable. "There's no more news, really. They're finding out details, the logistics of your..." and the attempt at a smile drops when he doesn't know how to end the sentence. Captivity? Abduction? Imprisonment? Which sounds best, but it's too late and the gape where a word should have been is already there. He takes a breath, and starts afresh, "I can fill you in, if..." but she shakes her head, hard and fast.

"I don't want to hear." She's brittle, a crack to her voice, and it makes him step closer in case she breaks, or falls. He should know better: she doesn't, but he aches at how fragile she is, a pain that coats him with helplessness. She turns, walks away, and he knows of nothing he can give her to make it better.

Worrying all evening brings no comfort, no clarity to his thoughts. He's far too aware of the gap that comes between the jokes Dickie tells and the smile she plasters across her face. Of the effort it takes for her to swallow a simple bowl of soup that Kathy has pushed in front of her while the rest of the family devour plates high with food.

He knows Kathleen is watching her as well, she mouths her concern to him across the table, and he can do nothing but shake his head, trying to convey...what? It's nothing to worry about? But they both know it is. It will be okay? Tonight he has doubts, sharpened and heightened by exhaustion and stress that will always make things become less simple in his mind. Even Eli picks up on the atmosphere, playing up with them all, and Kathy leads him off to bed with a scowl across his face and the threat of tears in his eyes.

Olivia notices the tension, watching from above in a clouded dream. Somewhere in the corner of her mind, blame lurks, guilt swimming in waves through her, but it can't penetrate deeper within, or make her feel. The need for sleep covers everything; that, and his image that keeps flashing through his head. Daniel. And the bed that makes her swallow nausea when she thinks of it as hers, when she longs desperately to sink into it, and be away from here. Soon after Eli goes upstairs she follows, claiming tiredness that cannot be disputed by anyone.

Elliot checks on her after half an hour, and again the bedside light is on and she is still, but he has no way of knowing if she's awake or asleep. His own weariness nags against him now he has stopped for the night, and Kathy comes up, ushering him to bed despite his whispered protests. "She'll ask for help, when she's ready. You can't force her," she promises, and he has nothing left within him but to believe her. When she makes him lie down, the need to stay awake fights against his brain, and loses. 

He wakes with a start, the clock taunting the too few hours it has been since he's fallen asleep, and he knows after a few seconds why he's woken up. There is the same noise as the night before, her steps descending the stairs, and he wakes for a less amount of time this time before following.

Olivia is pacing the kitchen, and she looks up when he appears, but doesn't stop. "Can't sleep?" he asks, trying to sound light-hearted and he thinks he might have succeeded, but it makes no difference and her frantic movements continue. "What can I do?"

She shakes her head, fast, too fast and she has to catch herself against the kitchen table. She is trapped, in this world that is utterly out of her control, and every time she closes her eyes she sees it. Her room, his face, and what she has lost. His voice haunts her and she wants to escape, looks for a way out but it's terrifying out there in the dark, on her own, with stars and a heavy night sky overhead. Keeping moving is the only thing to do.

His fear grows as he watches her, wild and frantic. This is the first time her façade has slipped so low, and he's catching a glimpse of what she holds inside. The pain she has swallowed. He knows, dreads that there is so much more beneath, but for now he needs to deal with this. Repeating her name doesn't help, doesn't stop her, and finally he stands in her way. She pauses, tries to go round him, but he side-steps with her in some twisted dance and finally she stills.

He speaks quietly, trying to calm. "What can we do to help?" As if it's a problem they will both solve, together. She won't meet his eyes, but she has halted and seems to be attempting to think of something. It's a start. "How about a walk?"

"No good." It's the first thing she's said since coming downstairs, and it's a relief to at least have her communicating with him.

"Okay, so...cards again?" He offers with a smile, like it's a normal thing for two adults to sit for hours of the night with everyone else asleep, and play rummy like these is no tomorrow. She looks like she's going to argue, she wants to argue and the desire to run and pace is flooding her, but eventually she nods in agreement and sits down.

In glimpses during the games, he gets Olivia back again and it makes each hand played, each shuffle seem worth his energy ten times over. She smiles, laughs a real laugh when she beats him with an outstanding score, and even teases him – once. "Old man," has never sounded so good, so wonderful to his ears.

"Want to try and get some sleep?" he ventures at one point, and she meets his eyes with an expression that might contain defeat, or simply resignation. She doesn't want to, knows it will be pointless, but she will pretend to try, for him. Only for him. He can't bear the swallow of trepidation she makes though, the way she begins to shut down, and he finds himself tossing his cards to her despite the desperation his eyes feel. "Deal again then."

It gives them, or him, time to talk now, sifting through his mind for things that have happened that won't be too big, too life changing or overwhelming for her to head about. He tells of small changes in laws, of cops they both knew, of people coming and going. Nothing huge, no tragedy or disaster, but enough to keep her attention and stop her leaving him. They chart yet another night this way.

Dawn has risen in a spray of light by the time she tells him to go to bed, with a sigh at the end of the word. "You too," he says in reply, trying to be insistent but she brushes him aside with a shake of her head, as she always could.

"I'll try to watch a movie or something. Maybe I'll drift off." He doesn't want to argue or steal her control, make decisions for her, so he nods and doesn't argue although it's the last thing he wants to agree on.

"Okay. Come and get me if you need me." He waits as she settles in front of the TV, hands wrapped tight round a mug of tea, and is glad that at least she is pretending she will try to sleep, not drinking coffee. He slides between his sheets and Kathy stirs beside him.

"She didn't sleep?" Her voice is soft and dim, shot through with concern as she speaks close to his ear. He rolls on his back, tries to open an eye to see her but fails.

"No. Keep an eye on her. I'm just going to get a couple hours." He feels her kiss him, faintly in the distance, as he sinks away. 

Waking up suddenly, it feels like no time at all has passed, and a large part of his wants to roll over and disappear into sleep again, but is loudly and decisively overruled by the need to check of Olivia. Rubbing the stubble across his face, he is glad that it doesn't matter, but it's a relief to slide into clean clothes and he feels better than he thinks he should, after so few hours.

There are cartoons on the TV in front of Olivia when he enters, louder than the movie she had put on to watch, but as he moves around he sees that Olivia is fast asleep, with Eli sitting on the floor next to the sofa and chewing on slices of apple as he watches. When he goes to find Kathy, she says Olivia has been asleep for an hour or so, that she had only gone off once Eli had joined her and asked to watch cartoons. He cannot resist standing, seeing her breath, soaking her in as she rests. It's what peace should be made of, he thinks.

* * *

It's barely eight in the morning but already the squad room is full, the two Feds standing apart from the others and talking as all wait for the initial CSI report on the cabin to come through. Mention has already been made of a second interview with Olivia but nothing has been confirmed and Fin is glad. Much as he hasn't admitted it, even to himself, Olivia's behaviour during the first had unsettled him and his discovery in her room has done much more than that. He fears seeing her, now he has been here, what her reaction to him will be. And more than that, he fears what might be hidden within her.

He feels his partner watching him, a mild stare, but doesn't respond. He thinks he's allowed – even entitled – to be lost in his own thoughts now, as he screws up pieces of paper and aims them at Paul's almost full coffee mug for something to do.

A man in a CSI jacket walks into the room, and it drops into silence immediately. He goes towards Capt. Price and hands her the box he is holding, files resting high on top of it.

"This Is what we've got so far," he says, handing the files to her, "and we thought you'd want to see these," and his hand rests to the lid of the box.

There is the air of expectant school children waiting for their teacher to speak, as she glances through one of the folders and then hands identical ones from underneath to each person on Olivia's case. Fin scans the information quickly, flicking through as it charts fingerprints found, DNA on tooth and hairbrushes, age and make of clothes and other items. All the usual things. The tech is waiting, and when Capt. Price puts her file down and takes the lid of the box, he speaks up again.

"These we found under the bed in the basement room. All the handwriting is the same, and they only have Olivia's fingerprints on them. Each has a date, a beginning and end, and we've put them in order but some times are missing, and there are pages torn out of nearly all of them. There was a fire-put behind the house, covered in snow, full of ash and debris. We're still sifting through, but we're not likely to get anything useful."

Capt. Price doesn't change expression as she pulls out a spiral notebook, and Fin can't resist, drawn in like a moth to the flame. When he reaches them, pulling once out, she stops and watches him, waiting. Her writing there is catching a glimpse of someone in the wrong place, a teacher on Sunday doing grocery shopping, a friend's parent in a bar. It's her handwriting, all of it, but it shouldn't be there and he cannot help starting to read.

"..._cold today, a good day to stay in bed and not move. Daniel brought soup, and it was good. I'm __glad I don't have to get up or do anything. I can lie here, warm and quiet, without being disturbed. I've never had time to sit and read, or think..."_

Nausea slaps him and he can't read any more. He can't bear her positive words, her handwriting charting her life, and what else might be inside. Slamming the notebook shut, he hands it to his Captain with a shake of his head and goes back to his seat.

She looks around the room, at the Feds in the corner, at Paul who is eyeing Fin with concern, and then makes a decision. "I'll read these myself. Anything pertaining to the hunt for Hartman, I will inform you of. Anything else will remain confidential until this comes to trial." Fin sighs in relief, that her confidence will be kept, for now. The Feds don't look happy, but he doesn't care. She continues, "Go through the report with a fine tooth comb. I want every single lead, anything remotely suspicious to be followed up. Then, Fin, go back to Olivia with one of our colleagues," and she includes the Feds in her gesture, "but remember...she's one of us, clear?" Both of them, in their sharp suits that make them seem as if they will never be overawed, nod.

Closing her door with a click behind her, she sits down at her desk with the box in front of her, before removing the lip again and pulling a piece of paper from the top. It explains the notebooks, the range of dates they cover, from the first starting on "17th May, Day 32," and the last which ends on the nineteenth of December.

Taking the first book out, she calms her thoughts, and inadvertently her mind drifts to the bottle of vodka that still sits in the bottom drawer of her desk, left over from Don, who had advised her to have it. It has helped too, on a few occasions, able to give her detectives something to take the edge off as they spoke.

She had known, coming into this job, that it wasn't never going to be easy, and it certainly hasn't been. Don had been right, that she would never believe how much she could bear to her. Before she starts reading, she remembers.

_He was sitting at the desk - nearly empty - when she came and knocked. He was retiring, at last, and she had come by before starting the next day to be filled in on the imp__ortant, ongoing cases, and the detectives she would be in charge of._

_Don welcomed her gladly, gesturing to the chair and offering her a drink, that she declined. "Smart woman," he said, and it came out full of tiredness. They started then, and he handed over files one by one, telling her facts that she noted down quickly, ready to read over again in the quiet of her home, or the next morning. Then, he took a last file from a drawer in his desk, and lay it between them, staring down at it. She knew what it would be, without asking._

_Finally he pushed it towards her, and she took it without opening it, just sitting it on her lap. "I hope to God you never have to go through what we did," he said, and there was gravelly emotion through his words that sent a small chill through her. Of course she'd known of the events, she'd watched with distant disbelief, and the grapevine filtered each new piece of gossip through. Detectives quitting, falling apart, rumours flying, she'd been aware of it all but with the comfortable knowledge that it had little to do with her._

_Now she was painfully aware that she still had Fin in her squad, who had seen through those days and was now the last one left, and that she was inheriting a job with more than it's fair share of trouble and grief. When she looked at Don, really looked at him, she could see it all in his eyes._

"_You never get over it. Not really. Losing someone." She nodded, believing him. She'd had to fire people, she'd had people break down and quit, or move on. People injured on the job, and never work again. She hadn't had a death, and she feared it. She couldn't imagine what they'd been through. _

"_I'm sorry." It sounded so feeble, although she was a forceful woman, not known for weakness or backing away from a difficult situation, and Don smiled. She knew he'd heard it all before._

_He left the keys on his desk, in plain view, stood up and walked around the other side, offering her his hand. "Take care of Fin. He's a good man. Strong, very strong. But not as tough as he'd have you think." _

_She nodded, shook his hand, and watched him leave, with the weight of it all on his back. She'd prayed, then, that his hope would come true, and she would never had to lose someone. _

Now, she begins to read.

* * *

Fin almost recoils when Elliot answers the door to him. His face is covered in stubble and dark circles crowd close to his eyes, the colour clashing against the red rims. Various image flick across his vision but Fin is forced to decide that this is the worst he has seen Elliot since those first, hellish days of Olivia's disappearance.

He tries to keep his shock within as he makes the introduction of the Fed behind him, and sees Elliot's eyes narrow suspiciously. "He's been told to go easy," Fin says, but the reassurance doesn't seem to do much good and Elliot's body language is quietly threatening, shoulders up and back bristling as he lets them into the house. Directing them to sit, he abruptly says he will go and get her.

They are entertained by Eli while they wait, who has catapulted himself onto Fin but is quickly ushered from the room by Kathy as Olivia comes through the door, Elliot close behind. Fin has the same reaction to her as when he first saw Elliot, barely swallowing the gasp that threatens to escape. She looks the same, except her black circles stand out even more against her unnaturally pale skin, and her frailty shows with her arms curled around her like she's cold, despite the sweater that is as least a size too big. She looks warily at the Fed when he introduces himself, and underneath his concern he hears her soft snort when he declares his title, that makes Fin smile to himself. Cops are always the same, and perhaps she hasn't changed as much after all.

When she sits down with Elliot next to her, the man clears his throat. "Perhaps it would be better if we talked to Olivia alone?" Fin thinks mildly that maybe he should have done the decent thing and warned him, but it's too late and Elliot growls like a papa bear, stood in the mouth of a cave.

"I'll leave if Olivia asks me too, and only then," the air vibrates with the harshness of his voice, and the man looks at her, but she is avoiding the gaze of everyone and doesn't react.

Sighing, he starts to ask questions, and they are mostly the same as before, with words changed and different phrases used. Every moment, Fin expects her temper to flare, for her to grow tired and impatient, but she doesn't. Instead, each answer is given in robotic monotone, empty and exhausted, and after a while he begins to hope for some emotion, some sign that she's still alive in there. Elliot looks unconcerned, and in a way, it worries Fin even more.

"So you never left the room, in five years?" He assumes the guy doesn't mean to sound disbelieving, is simply being an idiot and repeating himself, but he does and it brings a sight of annoyance to Olivia.

"No," she answers, slowly and condescendingly, like she is talking to a five year old, except she would never be that way with a child.

It's only that the forensic report showed hairs of yours throughout the cabin, upstairs," he's pushing now, and out of the corner of his eye Fin sees Elliot lean forward in threat, but Olivia is holding her own.

"That would be called transference." Each word is perfectly, sarcastically enunciated, and Fin grins again.

"So there is absolutely nothing else that you can tell us about what happened? Nothing that CSI might find?" Fin knows the suit is digging, he's got nothing, but he sees a flash – a hint of fear – spark in her eyes and immediately thinks to what he has found. That, and the burnt books with words destroyed into flames. She doesn't know that CSI haven't found what she fears, that he needs to speak to her, and he can't figure out how to tell her but he has to do something. She is frozen.

"It's okay, Liv." He is trying to tell her, to sound to the others like he's simply being reassuring, but he needs her to understand. Their eyes connect and he pushes as much as he can into the look, aware that Elliot and the Fed are looking at his as well, now he has spoken. He thinks, he hopes she has understood, because she drops her head and replies, in the same monotone as before,

"Nothing."

Elliot goes to show them out but as Fin passes her chair she reaches out to him, taking him by the arm, and the strength of her grip surprises him. When he looks down at her, this time, he doesn't see her fragility. All he sees is her thanks, without words but with a look as deep as any ocean on Earth. He places his hand over hers, and squeezes once, before leaving. He prays it's enough.

When Elliot goes back to where she is sitting, her eyes are open but her stare is blank, with nothing behind it. She has gone and he reaches to her, fingertips against the back of her hand and she starts, almost leaping out of her seat. It makes his heart run, and he says quietly, "Hey, it's only me." She leans back, after he has spoken, but her eyes begin to fade again and he adds, "You should get some rest."

She nods, in a distracted way, and he knows he is a broken record nagging her, but she has had no more than two hours at a time for god knows how long now, and he asks "please," with a pleading note. Perhaps it's begging that does it, or how pathetic he sounds, because she looks at him and sighs, "okay."

He sits down opposite her with a paper that swims before his eyes, and surreptitiously watches her fight sleep, for long long minutes, before he cannot keep his own open.

Again, yet again, her scream wakes him. This time it is so close that it sets his heart beating harder than he thinks possible. Kathy, Eli and Kathleen, who he hasn't even known is here, come running in and find him on his knees in front of her, brushing hair away from her face where it has stuck with cold sweat, and trying to calm her frantic, fighting moments. She is desperate, low exhales moans breaking from her, but he shakes his head when Kathy offers help with her eyes, and they retreat again.

Olivia's eyes dart around the room, wide and black, and he talks in soothing tones, trying to get her to see him. She stops fighting, takes a deep breath and then all the muscles let go, though he can see it's a struggle. Her gaze is locked on him, but he can tell she doesn't see him and his words spill out, a nonsense string of nothing in the way he would talk to his children. Perhaps it makes a difference, perhaps not, but after a terrifying minute she is in the room again, with him. Her eyes drop away from his face, her shoulders stop being either taut or completely numb, and she takes control again.

"I'm gonna clean up," she says, and it's her way of running. She will always run, and he has barely rocked back on his heels when she makes her move, stumbling away from him and he is left with the aftershocks shivering through him that started at her scream. He feels numb, kneeling and listening to Kathy begin dinner, and he has barely recovered, twenty minutes later, when the door goes again. He swears under his breath, runs a hand down his face and briefly wonders what the hell he looks like, before going to it.

He is made even more brutally aware of his looks when he sees who it is.

She sits under the shower, lukewarm because a hot shower is too weird, still. It feels unnatural, decadent, and what she really wants to do is have a bath, but she won't. The Olivia of before didn't have baths, she had showers. That's how it should be. The temperature, and sitting on the floor, is a compromise, but no one can see her with her arms wrapped tight against the world.

Closing her eyes, the water makes her drift. The white noise sounds like rain when it hit the small window outside and she would watch it trail down against the glass. It sounds like when the window is open, and the leaves brush all night, whispering their secrets and reminding her there is life out there. When wind makes them dance and spin and turn in fall, and she knows another season has come and come, and she is still alive. It's all of that, and she disappears into those moments, blissful. It is only when her body takes over and she jerks back that she realises she has slipped sideways, leant against the shower, and is curled in the bottom as water floods across her.

She's dressed again and is standing, indecisive, when a small knock comes and Kathleen's voice enters. "You've got a visitor, downstairs," she says, and Olivia glares at the door that isn't closed but hasn't been pushed open enough for Kathleen to see her. She turns, stares at the bed, and weighs the lesser of two evils. A cynical voice kicks in, tells her she's allowed to do what she wants, that Elliot will rejoice if she chooses to sleep instead of see...whoever it is, but the thought of trying to rest churns her up again, and she goes downstairs.

It's when she hits the bottom step, and looks up, that she thinks she has made the wrong decision after all. The possibility of fainting washes over her, and she is forced to clutch the bannister for support, before she falls. It must be clear across her face as well, as blood drains from her, as Elliot leaps to his feet and comes towards her. She's only vaguely aware of his approach, and she takes numb steps forwards, captivated by her visitor. It can't be real, none of this can be real, and it takes all her limited energy not to turn and run. So she just stands, and stares.


	9. Mindless

Olivia doesn't realise Elliot is beside her until one hand is on her back to support her. She's too overwhelmed to take anything in really, and John walks towards her with a smile that seems utterly, completely unreal. "Olivia," he says, and her name sounds foreign in her own ears, coming as it does in his voice. He's close, too close, and then she's in his arms, being kissed on the cheek with Elliot still behind her and she hugs back automatically, too hard perhaps but she needs to check that he is solid.

When John releases her, and turns, she takes in the other people who she had seen but not seen. The woman is tall, with dark wavy hair and smiles and, thank god, she doesn't stand and come over. She's not sure she could deal with that greeting right now, and her attention can't focus on the woman anyway. Instead, she's staring at the boy on her lap.

"Meet Aaron," John says with undeniable pride in his voice, and the child, with hair as dark as his mother's and so clearly John's son in every other way, offers a shy grin but doesn't get off his mother's lap. All the characters in this scene stand still, and everyone's eyes are on her, as she looks at him. She vaguely remembers Elliot telling her of him in the hospital, but perhaps she hadn't believed it. Now he is flesh and blood real. He exists when before there was nothing. He is John's son...John's son...entirely coming to life while she was gone, and now she thinks she might faint. The floor lifts and drops under her feet, her knees begin to shake and before she can fall, she turns and runs, ignoring the startled sounds she leaves behind.

Elliot has felt the fight within her and waited for a reaction, but he expected tears, not this. Yet again, since her return, she has done nothing but surprise him. He calls to Kathy as he takes off up the stairs after her, for her to entertain their unexpected guests, and he enters her room just after her.

"Liv..." he manages to get out, before words begin to spill from her.

"I can't...I can't...he's so big, and John's so happy and it's all too much. Elliot, it's... it's too much. Please," and there, for the first time, she's pleading to him. He closes the space between them and she keeps staring at him for help. When he slowly, carefully wraps his arms around her, as he had in the morning when she woke, she doesn't give in to him but she doesn't fight back either. They stand there, with her forehead leaning against him, and he feels her body release. Neither say a word, she never lifts her arms around him, but for a while he knows she is calm and safe in his arms, and it feels okay.

"Stay here," he whispers to her, and as he lets go she sinks onto her bed, "I'll go and speak to them." For a moment she opens her mouth to speak, and looks at the door once, seeming as though she might come downstairs, but then sits still. "I won't be long."

Kathy and Kathleen are with John and Rebecca when he comes downstairs, Eli and Aaron playing on the floor, and he doesn't have a clue what he is going to say, but starts speaking anyway. "It's been a hard day, and it's all too much for her."

Rebecca immediately interjects with apologies, exclaiming that of course, they should have called, and Kathy reassures her, but John is looking at Elliot with a new found concern. As Rebecca gathers Aaron, and prepares to leave, he draws Elliot away and says, "how bad is she, really?"

How can he break her trust, or admit that she is falling apart? Elliot knows she will not want to appear weak, is still desperately trying to retain herself, but he also cannot lie to John. He lets his eyes tell one story, while he says, "she's not great." John nods.

"We're in town for a week or two, it's not decided yet. Call me, if you need anything." Eli and Aaron talk all the way to the door, and Kathy and Rebecca swap plans to meet for coffee. It all feels so normal, but Elliot takes the stairs two at a time when the door has closed, and the house takes on the strange routine, the cracking atmosphere that has grown. The rest of them eat, and go to bed, and Elliot sits on her bed as she paces round and round him, not even able to settle on cards this night.

"You won't be failing, if you take something to help," he offers, at three am, when the only thing enabling him to stay awake is her tension, her franticness, but she shakes her head.

"I can't. My mom...I can't be like her." She mutters that for five minutes after he has suggested it, looking at the carpet as she walks, and he tries to argue back but she's not listening, not even talking to him, just repeating again and again and again her fears. The atmosphere sparks with her fear, her anxiety, her reliance on some deeper form of adrenaline, and Elliot cannot work out how she has the energy to still move.

Dawn hasn't yet arrived, it's the deepest moments of the night when she stops, and leans with her back against the wall and her eyes closed. When she does so, the room feels as though it will spin with the cessation of movement and it feels odd to Elliot. Olivia pulls at the collar of the sweater she's wearing, and bangs a fist lightly behind her. "I can't breathe," the whisper appears out of nowhere, and he's standing up and taking a pace towards her when the room shatters.

The scream shoots through them both, making them jump, and Elliot immediately recognises it as Eli. He runs through the doorway before he can think, arrives at his bedside at the same time as Kathy, and picks up the boy who is crying and covered in sweat. He allows himself to be rocked and calmed by his father for a minute, before reaching for Kathy, and as Elliot hands him over, he sees Olivia's devastated face in the doorway.

He brushes a hand across Eli's head, reassures himself that he's okay, that he is settling and safe, and follows her as she leaves. She hasn't gone towards her bedroom though, but is standing before the front door, staring at it, shaking.

"I've got to go," she says as she hears him come down behind her, and doesn't let him ask the question before continuing, "it's my fault. He had that nightmare because of me. I can't do this, I can't be here." She's taking steps towards the door, opening it before he can reach her, and is one foot outside as he takes her arm.

"Liv, come back," she turns almost violently, a spark in her eyes despite her exhaustion, and it's the first sign of proper life he's seen in a couple of days.

"I can't stay here El." She is forceful, and he knows he will be unable to argue. She has never backed down, not when she sets her mind on a course of action. Not when she believes herself to be at fault for something.

"Okay, let me... let me get sorted. We'll go for a drive. We'll figure something out." He's afraid of her walking out, wandering the streets with nowhere to go. He's afraid of her state of mind and her exhaustion, and of where then hell she might end up. She relents, allows herself to be drawn back in and stands by the front door waiting.

While she does so, listening to the sound of him gathering clothes in a bag, telling Kathy...what, she doesn't know. All she can feel is the walls closing in, fuelled by the sight of John, of the body, and the sound of Eli's screams. They will trap her, fall on her and this time she'll never be free. She has to get out of her, has to. Or she'll lose herself.

When Elliot comes back downstairs, she is standing with her forehead pressed against the door, trying to break through. Her eyes are closed, every inch of her body wired, and he is too scared to touch her, for fear of the consequences. He grabs a couple things from the kitchen, before approaching her.

"We can go now," he says, and hands her a pair of shoes borrowed from Kathleen, and the coat she wore for the snowball war with Eli, that seems a million years ago. He has put clothes for him, for her into the bag, and the pharmacy bag has been slipped into the side. He can only hope, or pray, that either she will take something, or where they go she will get some rest.

The reporters have given up standing outside the house all night now, after getting nothing from his children when they ventured out to visit friends. He has seen a few still around during the day but no one has arrived yet, and the streets are empty as they pull away from the house. He still has no idea where they are going though, and Olivia is no help, staring blankly out of the window away from him.

He counts in cycles of ten to keep awake, makes himself look at every single object he approaches as he drives and after thirty minutes, he dares to speak. "Do you want to go home?"

"Home?" She sounds aimless, repeating the word without understanding. Elliot braces himself against the steering wheel.

"Your apartment. It's still there, as you left it." He eyes her, once the sentence is over, and the turn of her head is slow and disbelieving.

"What?" Her voice is small in the night, and the low hum as he still drives.

"We...we couldn't pack it up, not knowing. So we kept it." It had seemed so logical through all the years, the empty place sitting with what they could hold onto of her, but now he's heard the truth in her ears, it sounds strange and untrue. He waits for more reaction.

"Take me there." And it's a order, the strongest one she has given, with a bite to her eyes that tells him she is certain. He slides through the dark towards the dawn that is slowly rising over the city, and by the time they are sitting outside the building, there is a glow to the streets, people emerging from a faint, grey mist lightly tinted with the first sun. Olivia doesn't wait, doesn't hesitate and is out of the car fast. He follows, unsure of what to expect this time, when this time, what he dreads comes true.

Three steps away from the door, away from entering, she halts, slammed into a wall around the place. Her eyes take on the fear of before, except more so, and he is immediately aware of the tremor of her body. HE reaches a hand close, expecting her to jump away, prepared for the fight he thinks she will give against him, but nothing happens. Absolutely nothing.

There are people walking past them on the sidewalk, just emerging from the buildings, joggers and dog walkers braving the morning, but she sees none of them. He can't imagine what she does see, and shakes harder, speaks louder. "Liv!" But there is an emptiness that scares him when he moves round and looks properly into her face, and shaking with both hands on her shoulders brings him no reward either. For a brief moment he considers slapping her, but cannot bring himself to lay his hands on her like that, and searches around him as if a guardian angel will come and grant him a reprieve from this nightmare, will offer help, will fix things.

No one comes.

Finally he grips as hard as he dares, and turns her body. She reacts as a robot to his push and his guidance, blind and deaf, stumbling for him to catch as they step off the kerb. She reminds him of a sleepwalker he had seen on a documentary once, how the guy's wife would guide him home and back to bed when he had gone wandering, and he feels the same.

Once she is settled, still empty, he begins to drive again, and a thought dots into his head. He looks at her, wondering, but can come up with nothing else, and so takes his chance.

During the drive, it is impossible for him to resist stealing glances every ten seconds or so, but nothing changes. He's sitting with a statue. Despite the commuter traffic, it's all driving into the city and he doesn't require all his attention on the road. A good thing too, the combination of hours and hours with no sleep and his need to keep his eye on her mean he's nowhere near as alert as he should be. They might have driven for hours when they pull up outside Don's house, the quiet of the suburb all around, but it will be nothing as long as that.

Unsure as to what to do next, he weighs up the two options before getting out of the car and hurrying fast to the front door. He doesn't know whether Don is even here, though he doesn't know where else he will be, and cannot manage the thought of trying to get in back in the car once she's out.

Knocking hard on the door, it isn't long before he hears footsteps, and Don opens the door, a calm expression turning to surprise when he sees who is standing there. "El?"

Looking behind him, he waits until Don's gaze follows, and he knows he has seen Olivia sitting still in the car when he exhales under his breath, a low whisper of surprise that might carry her name within, but might not. "El?" he repeats.

"She needed to get out of the house. The kids, the noise, it was too much." There is too much to tell in one sentence and he wants Olivia out of the car and into four walls. "It was...sudden. Sorry."

"Of course. How is -" and Elliot interjects quickly.

"I'll need some help, I think. Getting her in." He hopes Don will get the message that there is something dreadfully, painfully wrong. He must have some idea, for them to turn up at this time of the morning, but he needs it understood fully. It's an utter relief when, as he watches, the professional Don kicks in and a change slides over him. Quickly, he grabs a coat, pulls shoes on and follows him back to the car.

Elliot slides into the driver's side and Don goes around to pull open the door of hers. The cold metallic scalds against his fingers but the pain soon vanishes when he sees Olivia sitting there, staring as though utterly absorbed by the hinges of the door, blank and still. The sight of her washes across him as ice water, stealing his breath. She is in a worse state, perhaps that even the night they found her, certainly than in the harsh glow of hospital lights. He thinks Snow White could not have achieved her skin tone, there isn't even a hint of healthy glow on tan in her cheeks and the blue, dusky shadows haunt her cheekbones.

Elliot is sitting next to her, talking quietly but with a firm tone to her voice and throwing glances at Don when he gets no response. "Liv, we're at Don's house. "You're gonna get some rest here, and some peace and quiet. Don and I will be here, okay?" Both wait, before Don tries, and it occurs that perhaps this is easier, her looking foreign to him. It softens the pain, for a while.

"Olivia, it's Don. It's all going to be okay." It might be a lie, it might be the truth, but there is no way to care now. She still doesn't react, and as he looks once more at Elliot, his mind gives him a picture of Olivia in the days before she vanished. The strength, the competence, even a smile and a hint of laughter thrown into the mix. Now, it seems impossible to even imagine.

Elliot takes over again. "You're going to come inside now, alright?" He puts one hand on her shoulder and another on her arm, and Don mimics him on the other side of her. He is surprised to feel a faint tremor shivering across her skin, not visible to the naked eye but clearly conveyed through their touch. Elliot, however, shows no shock, and Don wonders what they've been through in the past few days for this to be taken in his stride.

He follows Elliot's lead when he sees him exert more pressure against her, and finally her body seems to relent, though there is no comprehension in her eyes. She moves slowly, swinging her legs out, and Don cups the crown of her head as she stands, able to tell that there is no way she will assess the space on her own. Elliot is around her side in a flash and together they help her walk, Elliot muttering murmurs the whole way up the path. She is like an old lady, crippled and helpless, but niether focus on that.

When they make it through the door, Elliot says, without looking at him, "she needs to lie down," and Don guides them down the hallway and into a room that is obviously his spare bedroom. Elliot pulls back the comforter and they sit Olivia down on the bed and Elliot takes over as a father. "Hands up," he says, and she seems to hear something because her arms raise and he slides her sweater off over her head before placing one hand supporting her back and the other on her shoulder, making her lie down. Once she's stretched out, he takes her shoes off, and slides the cover back across her, stroking her hair out of her face as he does.

"Go to sleep now," he says, and after a few more minutes her eyes slide close, and a exhausted calm seems to drench her face. Don goes and lets the blinds down, so the light is there but dim in the room, and both men stand at the doorway and watch her. Slowly, Elliot fills him in, the interviews, the insomnia, the nightmares and then John's visit.

"I can't believe it's this hard," he sighs, rubbing his hand across the harsh stubble quickly, trying to create energy somehow. Don listens, but Elliot has little left.

"It hasn't been very long El," he finally says, eyes fixed on Olivia's form beneath the covers. "This is all to be expected." Elliot nods as if he hears, but Don can tell there is no belief within it, a doubt flickering around him. "What is it?"

"I guess I thought it would easier. That I'd know what I'm supposed to do. We dealt with this kind of thing every day, with..." and he catches on the last, unspoken word, that both Don and Elliot still hear in the space left. Victim.

"But she's not only a victim, is she. She's a cop, and she knows how she is supposed to act as well." It's the first time Elliot thinks like this, and pushing somehow through the cloud of exhaustion there comes realisation.

"Oh God," he whispers under his breath, thinking through the position Olivia is trapped in. She knows what is expected of her, what being a victim is, what the process is. Suddenly, ignorance truly does appear bliss, for them both. Don sees it hit him, pale washing across the skin and highlighting the exhaustion and stress already there. In the silence, he waits for Elliot to swallow, begin to absorb just what they face, and then he sees his eyes slide shut, and he sways on his feet.

"I'll stay here, if you'd like to get some sleep. You look like you need some." Elliot stays looking at Olivia, peacefully sleeping, and rubs his eyes as if he intends to fight it. He needs a nudge, and Don gives it, the one he knows will work. "You're no good to her like this." As expected, he responds to this, and Don gives him his own bed that he falls into with barely a sound. Don thinks he is asleep before his head hits the pillow.

It's peaceful in the house, a different kind of peace from what he usually has, which could maybe be described as loneliness instead. There is an atmosphere created by two people breathing deeply, dreaming, resting, and it's a good feeling, despite his concern. He calls Kathy, who is just glad they are sleeping, calls Fin whose worry he can feel through the phone, calls John who tries to cover his concern with the usual jokes.

During the day, Elliot wakes once to go to the bathroom and stops in to look at her, but Don reassures him that she hasn't stirred, and he retreats back to sleep. In the afternoon he hears her shift a few times restlessly, and goes to stand by her door, but she doesn't wake and he can't decipher her mutters. She stops, stills after a while, and he makes himself a dinner, unsure when anyone might wake.

There is silence when she feels herself start to wake. For a while she's been on the edge, her body heavy, consciousness too much effort to reach, but gradually she's floated towards the surface, and now she is warm under covers, and her socks are still on. It's the first thing that strikes her, and makes her begin to piece together what else is happening. The scent of linen is a foreign one, there is a clock ticking somewhere, and she can figure nothing else.

It's surprisingly easy to open her eyes, but things don't become any clearer once she's looking at her surroundings. After a couple of minutes of staring at the wall, her brain gives her clues, and she remembers a drive, Don's voice, Elliot somewhere. The puzzle clicks into place, and she tests her body, her mind by sitting up in bed. Dizziness floods for a second and there are the remnants of tension in every muscle, a brief trickle of anxiety trails under her skin, but its bearable.

Stepping out of the doorway, she glances one way, and can make out a body sprawled across a bed, and knows instinctively it is Elliot. She has seen him sleep enough times. There is faint noise, the sound of TV coming from the other direction, and she follows it.

Don is sitting there, and he doesn't get up when she appears slowly, just smiling at her. "You look better," he says, and it makes her sweep a hand through her hair and catch the knots with fingertips. "You want anything to eat?"

"No, thanks." It's the first thing she's said for hours, a catch to her voice and she sounds loud to herself but Don just nods and points for her to sit down. She does so, pulling her knees up to her chest and watching the TV, an old Jimmy Stewart movie that she vaguely recognises. The stillness, the companionable silence is foreign to her, here in this place, but also so familiar the ache builds and crashes over her, but she clings to it. It's something she can bear, this feeling, of sitting next to a man and being still. She won't whisper his name in her mind, but it's there all the same, an echo of...what? What she had forced herself to want, and has now lost.

If she thinks, it all becomes too complicated, so she stops and simply watches. Part of her still wants to pace, to move and shift and fight against the world but her body won't listen to her, raise itself to that level of tension.

She surprises herself when, at the end of the movie, she yawns widely and long. Don chuckles from his chair, "Sounds like you need some more sleep," but she doesn't respond, and only then does he look at her. "It's okay, you know." He could mean anything, be referring to any number of thoughts that flit between them, but his words are all encompassing and it helps, somehow. He doesn't nag further and it's that that helps, that allows her to stand and say,

"Goodnight," in quiet tones that match this house, and walk back to the bed that now seems so appealing. She stops again to look at Elliot, one leg falling out of the covers and the pillow over his head as he lies on his front, and his sleep calms her. She could stand and watch him, relish the safety she finds in him, and the relief that he is here. His back rises, falls again, and after a while she realises she is mimicking his breathing. It soothes, and when she blinks, her eyes stay closed longer than usual. .


	10. Meaningless

There is laughter, somewhere. Creeping through his dreams and sneaking up on him, until he is forced to open his eyes and search for the answers. There are none here, in this room that isn't his, but he is drawn outwards past dawn faded walls, and he finds them.

Morning has come. Another day, and he feels rested, which is a surprise to him. But not as much of a surprise to him as Olivia, sitting at the small kitchen table with the flush of a smile still lighting her face. He could watch her forever. The hint of colour that is new and soft against her skin. Her mouth, the corners raised, and now Don is slowing his story and both turn to look at him.

"Morning," Don says brightly, immediately standing to get coffee, and Elliot repeats his response back at him without even thinking, captivated. She looks at him, and a hint of who they had once been washes between them as she mouths a greeting, and there is no sound to her speech but he hears her anyway.

Only now does he take in the plate in front of her, scattered with crumbs, and Don places toast and coffee at a place for him. He slides in next to her, seeing her like he has never seen her before. She has dropped her gaze for a moment, turned to Don to decline anything further, and when she looks back he reads everything.

In her, bubbling still beneath, there is everything there. The depth of pain, the loss, the confusion and the shock, but she tells him without words. Tells him that, for now, there is calm surface. She can breathe, with a breeze that will not churn anything more than ripples in a deep pool. And, as she shoots a quick flick of her eyes to Don, and Elliot follows her look, more understanding comes.

Olivia is doing it for Don. He's happy here, bustling through the kitchen and wiping surfaces that have seen more activity that morning than – well - forever. She's helping him, and if that means she helps herself, then so be it.

It is a strange sort of domesticity, he thinks, as he takes a bite of toast and a sip of coffee that might be the best he's ever tasted. Maybe because Don, after all these years, should know good from bad. Maybe because his hand reaches to her, and squeezes until she turns hers up, and they match, palm to palm. Through her, he feels the rough edges to his skin, the effort it takes her now to be normal, and then she squeezes back.

Don watches, when he knows they don't see. Catches the glances she shoots Elliot's way, when unease begins to grow, and Elliot takes every one and moves to her with a simple rest of a hand against her shoulder, a whisper, a smile. Don won't tell them he sees, and as she moves through the house she is a newborn fawn, all legs and uncertainty fresh across her in tumbling innocence.

He thinks she looks younger than those years ago. That silence and darkness has wiped the taint of the job from the surface of her skin. She's so pale. It's What it has left, he thinks none of them understand, just yet.

When he starts to make home-made soup for lunch for them all, Elliot can contain himself no longer.

"All these years, Kathy's been bringing meals, and you're a domestic goddess?" He snorts with a smile, the sight of Don in an apron so incongruous he can't resist his chuckle.

"Your wife's cooking is vastly under-appreciated by you and your children, all of whom seem to think a hot-dog is the height of cuisine," Don retorts, and bubbles of laughter float into the air between them all.

"What can I say, I'm a New Yorker through and through," Elliot shrugs, unabashed, his smile wide, and turns to Olivia.

"Think we're safe to try it?"

"Safer than if you were cooking," she bites back, and suddenly it's all so excruciatingly easy, to be with her and tease and laugh and ignore the cloud still above, the threat of rain, the elephant in the room. Don's bark of laughter comes so suddenly it makes her jump and flinch, but then she looks at Elliot from beneath her lashes, and the smile on her face teases him to reply, to try and shoot her down, but he can't. He can't.

She hovers, in two pieces, and she knows what it is like to not feel whole. Mostly she has hated it, watching from afar as others seem more complete, with their families and their lives and the normality of it all, but now it is a relief. In the back of her mind, it all sits, but she has learnt from years and years of trying how to separate herself from it all. How to smile, when life stings with a slap. How to shrug your shoulders, and swallow the burn, and pretend even to yourself that nothing is wrong. She knows this dance.

So she does it today. With Don, very little comes out, and what a focus it gives her to be who he needs. To let him hand her food and drink and warmth and normality, and see him smile to himself as he does so. She shows something more to Elliot, the moment a pan slips in the kitchen and she starts at the sound. Shouts from outside, sneaking in when Don opens a window a crack, and it's only children playing and a dog barking furiously, but it may be sandpaper against her skin. Or not. Just the memory of such.

They eat, in the humid warmth of a kitchen full of cooking, and bread soaked in soup slides down easily and doesn't catch once in her throat as she tries to swallow. Even Elliot doesn't watch each mouthful, and is forced to bow to Don's cooking skills, though he contends that he could make anything else.

She beats them at Scrabble. Not once, but numerous times that afternoon, when the score ends up five games to her, and only one apiece to Don and Elliot, and there is just one single moment of pause, when she lays out 'zombify' for 76 and both look at her in astonishment, neither arguing it's existence as a word. He had let her have it as well. Had used it against her afterwards.

"Amazing what years locked up will do for your vocabulary," and it's a line crossed. The first time she has joked about what has happened, and there is a split second where she hears her own words, coarse and hard against the gentle day, and wishes she could take them back. But they save her with laughter, and Elliot grumbles under his breath at the unfairness of her hours of practice, joining her in it. Still, it hangs between them.

They sit in the evening with the two men watching sports and Olivia curled into her chair, observing them from beneath half resting eyelashes, so she catches just glimpses, like she's sneaking up on them from afar.

Don is more relaxed than Elliot, even though the latter gives a good appearance of being so. She knows him well enough though, despite it all, to see the line in his neck where tension rests and the shifting muscles of his shoulders that tell the truth. Next to him, Don is contained, quiet and still.

She's so strong. So hard, in all the right places. But how can they be the right places, because who should have to do what she does now. Who should have to sit and be so normal, press so far down the things inside of her. The walls she had before shouldn't have been needed, the ones against her mother and her father and her blood. Against the violence and the drunken nights and every single moment she knew she wasn't wanted. Against the job. Against herself. Against him.

And now she has built walls he doesn't have words for. That he doesn't know enough about to understand.

They are all seeing each other, out of the corners of their vision. They are all together, and apart.

When she thinks of the day, how it has gone, she can't help but be slightly proud of herself. She hasn't closed down much at all, and has fought losing herself in the false happiness of memories. Her head tells her it has to be false, because there is no way she could have felt that way, but the past feels ten times more normal and natural than today.

She is tired, and so she lets herself begin to close down now, as Elliot and Don quietly bicker like old women about who sleeps in the bed and who on the couch. She listens, and the image of them both curled together under sheets almost brings a smile to her, and then it hits. A heartbeat, next to hers. Warmth. Soft noises in the night. Her breath leaves her and she's plunged into ice cold water without warning.

Counting down from ten to one isn't enough time. Not nearly enough, so she does it again, and thankfully they are still so wrapped within their argument that they don't see yet. Thirty, forty, fifty comes and finally she has enough control to wrap a smile across her face and bid goodnight, firm enough that even if they don't believe she is okay, the cracks are not wide enough for them to force through and demand the truth.

Curled up in bed, she rests her hand on her own heart, feeling it beat, and hears his name without ever saying it out loud. She will not dare, for she will break. Jake. And then she dreams.

The last of Captain Price's detectives wraps on the door with knuckles and a wave that he is off, and she puts the book down thankfully and rubs her eyes tiredly. It can't possibly be evening already. She has been reading, searching for clues, all day. Every time she wants to stop, she reminds herself she is looking for where this guy is. That there might be answers here that even Olivia doesn't realise. It doesn't make it any easier.

""""""""""""

_I'm going crazy here. Talking to myself. Perhaps this is more normal, writing stuff down, though I don't know how that works. No one will ever read it. Him maybe. It's not like I could stop him. Doesn't matter anyway, he can if he wants. What harm would it do?_

_Who knew my overriding problem would be boredom. Boredom and silence. There is so little noise here. I could scream all day and no one would here me. Doesn't seem much point but maybe I'll try it._

_I list all the noises I am used to and don't hear. The hum of traffic, all the time. Even in the middle of the night. People. No people here. The building, but there are creaks here as well. Sirens. Air conditioning and heating. The fridge. Water. Planes overhead. There are a million and one noises I don't hear any more. I list them to go to sleep. People make a lot of noise, put together in a city._

_My mind works too hard. There is nothing to wear it out. Don't think. Don't think. Perhaps if I write stuff down it will clear my head._

_You think I'm crazy already? I'm so lonely it aches all the time. So quiet here and it makes the air feel heavy. I didn't know quiet could do that. It's an education, here in this basement on my own. I guess I should be figuring out how to escape but I've run out of ideas already. Great detective I am. The door opens inwards, and is so heavy that he only has to let go for it to slam shut. I don't know the code. He says he's not scared of death, so threatening him doesn't work. Tried that. Why am I telling myself all this? The weird thing is, I believed him before I tried, and it was true._

_I don't think he's lied to me once. An honest rapist. I can't remember anyone ever not lying to me, at least once. He told me he's the rapist without me asking, even though my skills are still honed enough to figure that out. That he didn't know I was a cop and it makes sense. We weren't exactly close to catching him so why throw himself in my way? 'Of all the apartments, in all of the streets,' he said when he explained. Some sick love film, or the opposite of. I should hate him. How quickly does Stockholm kick in? In those first days I hated him, when he sat down and told me everything. How it had happened._

_I tried to talk to him logically. Appeal to him. He called me out on everything I did. Now I don't talk much and he doesn't say much. It's so hard, not to talk. He's the only person I see. I told myself I need to keep hating him and now, already I don't. I feel sorry for him. He tries so hard and seems so sad.  
_

_Then again, I didn't always hate my father when I thought of him either. __Ignore that. I did. I do. And I hate him. I will always hate him. Them both. _

"""""""""""""

"It's New Year's Eve today," Don says in the morning, and Olivia can't tell whether his surprise is real or if he's pretending for Elliot and her, who clearly have no idea what day it might be. She doesn't anyway. Perhaps Elliot does.

"Another year older," Elliot winks at Don, and she can't get a handle on their relationship yet. She wonders, if she asked them, would they know how much they have changed? It's too much like father and son and they've gotten closer. They tease each other, like Dickie teases Elliot at home. This Don is someone she doesn't know. Laid-back and quiet and calm and … _No, don't think it. Don't think better. Don't think happier._

An odd threesome they make, sitting that evening and watching cheesy TV that never seems to change. Who knew seeing in the year would be something that is the same, again and again. She closes her eyes as the ball drops.

"""""""

"Do you wish?", he asked the first New Year's, and wishing is something she'd already taught herself not to do by then. She'd told the truth - that, no, what would I wish for? It will never come true. And the exquisite sadness rolled over him then, and she couldn't tell when his pain ended and hers began.

"I wish." He said; she didn't ask, and he didn't tell. Not then. She had thought though, how silent all her relationships were, if that's what this could be described as. Maybe it had been her, always her that means people don't talk. She never talked to her mother, not properly. Rarely to Elliot. Never to boyfriends. And no one had talked to her, as she held them at arm's length.

Don't get close, and no one will get hurt.

Does Elliot talk to anyone now? Or is he as broken as she is. As the man opposite her is, on their first New Year's Eve.

"""""""""

When she opens her eyes again, nothing has changed. A new year brings nothing with it but the same old lives. They may as well just have stayed in the last one. All that celebration, all the energy and light and tacky words and it's just false promises, made between two people. A promise to change, to try harder, to be better. That will never happen, really.

Auld Lang Syne is here. The same old song. Dragging us back. Elliot hums it and Don whispers the words under his breath.

He had told her what it meant. Their first New Year's together. For old acquaintance. She hadn't gone to bed until dawn, and then with tears in her eyes, as she thought of old acquaintances. She won't cry now. She has them here, her old acquaintances. They feel new though, like repainted rooms. The same walls, but something different. _What colour am I?_ She wants to ask, but they wouldn't understand.

Too melancholy tonight, for a New Year. A new life. Maybe it's the beer she's allowed herself to have, that she and Elliot drink in Don's house. Cruel, maybe, but he offered. He's in control now. She wishes she was.

"""""""""

The beginning comes as the end had, with no surprises except the one that reads: things should be different, but they're not. Elliot is asleep, stretched out on the sofa that is too small for him really, but he doesn't shift or fidget as she tiptoes past. She stands and watches Don's back yard, with trees at the end whose boughs bend and bow with snow. Birds are hopping, scattering footprints everywhere, in winding patterns. The dog she heard the day before barks again, but the birds don't leave, or even react. _How do they know not to be scared? _She thinks, and _I'm scared, _as her hands tighten momentarily into fists.

It's then that Elliot stretches, and she hears his small grunt that tells her he's awake and ready for the new day. The grunt he has always given, though perhaps he never notices it now, and wouldn't know what she was talking about if she mentioned it. She always knew when he woke up.

Elliot calls home during the day, and Kathy laughingly informs him that Dickie hasn't emerged from his room yet, despite Eli running round the house all morning, and the girls are all at friends houses. All three had text that morning to confirm they were still alive, but Kathy thinks they probably aren't feeling like they are. He chuckles.

"Are you coping?" He asks, and she assures him that she is, that Eli misses him, but that she's explained as best she can.

"How are you doing?" Kathy asks in reply, and he finds himself at a loss. He thinks she must hear it, across the distance, because she simply says "okay," to his silence. "Call me. Keep us up to date. Eli misses you," she repeats, and then "but we're all okay."

When he hangs up, he misses them. But he can't leave her. Not now.

"""""""""""""

Nightmares return that night, but when she wakes this time the scream is still in her throat and she can bite it back, swallow hard until it is a lump of iron in her stomach that pins her to the bed, scared to move. Her heart has stopped beating far sooner than her mind stops racing. She repeats over and over again that it is only a dream. Only a nightmare, not real. But it won't work now.

She feels in limbo. Unsettled. Trapped even, though how she can feel like that after only a few days, given the years, is strange. There is a mix of sensations, that she shouldn't want to leave here, but she does. It's warm and it's quiet and in some ways, it reminds her of there, and perhaps that is more the problem. That it's too close, and she could let herself fall into being here just like she had done there.

When Elliot gets up the next day, New Year +1, Olivia seems slightly on edge. Not as she had been before, but still not as settled as she had seemed the last couple of days and he's instantly on alert. It doesn't take her long, maybe half an hour, before she speaks off handedly in the way that tells him this is no big deal, even if he thinks it might be.

"Can you go to the apartment today?" She asks, and if he didn't know her better, he wouldn't see the effort the words had taken, and the minute hitch before 'the', when she had considered saying 'my'. He doesn't show he hears though.

"Sure. What do you need?"

"I wrote a list," she passes it over to him, ready made, and he scans down her clothes, a few books and other things. Nothing surprising, or that should make her be as tense as she is, and there must be something else coming. He's right. "Then, I'll need to start looking for a new place."

"So soon?"

"I've got to start...trying to get some kind of life back. Be normal, whatever that is. Though I don't know how I'll have a hope in hell of paying rent now."

She's trying to be offhand, to belay the seriousness of her worries, but it doesn't work and in the shrug she gives afterwards, he thinks he sees her acknowledgement of that. _I know, but pretend, for me_ it says.

"Rent's not a problem," a voice comes from behind them, and Don has come in. "We've been paying rent on the apartment since...well, we can pay rent on a different one just as easily."

She looks at Elliot in stunned disbelief, and is shaking her head before Don even takes a breath at the end of his sentence. "No, absolutely not."

"Why not. Its easily manageable, between the four of us." And Don gestures to Elliot, who is sitting opposite Olivia and watching her, but not getting involved. Still, he doesn't opt out of being included either. If this is what it takes, he will do it, but for now he will let them argue it out.

"I cant ask you to do that for me." Before she looks down at the pen she's clicking in her hands, left over from the list, Elliot can see frustration, and annoyance, that she's not getting her own way. He hates that this feels like controlling her again, but Don has a point. She has no way of paying rent at the moment.

"You're not. We offered. And we'd be a damn sight happier paying it for you to live in, rather than just for your stuff."

"But you've got other things to spend your money on. Family, kids..." She fades off even before Don starts to shoot her down again.

"Not me. And not Fin," Don shrugs. "And I'm willing to bet the money we're talking on the fact John would shoot you down for refusing as well."

She bites down on her agitation. How to tell them, to throw back in their faces the gift that is so freely offered, and scream that it's tainted. It's wrong. It's the thought of being kept by someone else again, of being at someone else's whim, and hoping they won't change their minds.

They won't see it though, and she's not sure which is worse: feeling indebted or seeing their lack of understanding and the hurt they will feel at the comparison. They won't get it, that it doesn't matter that she trusts them. That it wouldn't be like that.

She's silent, fighting the words, and then quietly gives them something. "I'll think about it."

It seems enough, and Elliot picks up the list from the table, and says he'll go now. The list that she had written in the middle of the night, when she couldn't fall back to sleep.

"""""""""""""""""

_Month two – I think. _

_Lists, lists, lists. They are such a friend now. I never had any patience before, for sitting down and making lists, even a grocery one. Now I make lists all the time, in my head. It started easily enough, trying to remember people's birthdays, or their badge numbers. Names of long forgotten friends from school. Who sat at the desk three from the door and four back?_

_There are rules to the lists now. They can't be written down, that's cheating. The ones I list the most get remembered in the same order, as much as I can. People I know spiral outwards, from the ones closest to me, to distant people like the woman in the coffee shop on Tuesdays and Fridays, whose name is Jan. It's amazing how many people you can get to know, in a lifetime._

_I could list my lists here. That wouldn't break the rules. People. Perps. Victims – full names only or they don't count. Victim's families. Forms, procedures, laws. Names of streets and parks. What happened where. Which blocks we never went to on a call. _

_The mundane things have no order to them. They don't get recited in my head so much. Colours, from basic to extreme. Another word for red, for blue. Countries of the world. I don't know enough about them, about any of them. I never went. Now I won't. But I can list them. All the animals I can think of. Boys names. Girls names. Presidents (I should know more.)_

_I can list for hours. Until penguins and magenta and whether Hong Kong is a country or a city swirl round and round in my head and I can slip into the vortex and sleep. _

_I remember a boy at school who started a short lived craze of who could list the most numbers of pi. It didn't last for long, everyone else got bored and moved on, but he would walk the halls repeating them in a chant. I don't know how many he got to. I wonder if he was searching for an answer, or simply a calm within it all. I wonder what thoughts he was hiding from. _

_I've taught myself to mirandize backwards. First only the words in the wrong order, but then the sounds as well, so it is foreign in my head. Don't ask me why though._

_You to read been have they as rights these understand you do? You to appointed be will one, attorney an afford cannot you if. Attorney an to right the have you. Law of court a in you against used be will and can say you anything. Silent remain to right the have you. _

_It makes sense to me._

_""""""""""""_

Elliot brings back a duffel bag of clothes, and she lays them out on the bed that isn't hers. She hasn't asked for anything difficult. No old work clothes, or dresses for dates, but things to slide into after a hard day. To relax in for too few hours before crashing into bed, except now she has too many hours. Still, she showers, and slips the most familiar on again, where they cling to her in the way they always had. Perhaps she's expecting something more from them, but she's disappointed. She doesn't feel like the person she was.

Captain Price turns up on the doorstep the next day, before the path has been swept after the night's snowfall. "These forms are for Olivia," she says, and hands a brown envelope to Don, who invites her in. He's just making her a drink when Olivia walks into the room, and Captain Price is surprised by how solid she looks. Somehow she'd brought to mind some kind of shadow. Maybe it's just because that's what she's been in the squad room for so long, a ghost drifting through. Now she's real again. It's the closest to Lazarus she's ever seen.

Not to mention she's been lost in the notebooks.

Olivia is cautious with the nod of her head in greeting, and slips round them both to pour herself a coffee before going to go, and she speaks up quickly.

"Detective Benson," and Olivia seems to stop in slow motion, the words taking an age before they settle, and when she turns back to face her, the envelope is already offered. "These are for you. They were brought to the squad room. Seems no one official was quite sure where you were staying."

Olivia takes them with a quizzical look and slips into the lounge area as the two captains, current and ex, start up a low conversation between themselves. The envelope is official, her name printed on the front, and its like falling back in time to a place she had forgotten, where paperwork ruled.

Sliding the sheets out, there is - as expected - a form to fill out, and a covering letter that she reads once, and again, and then stares at it without speaking. Since she's come back to her life, nothing has made sense really, and this makes even less.

She's still staring when Elliot walks in with the fresh smell of his morning shower following him, and he knows immediately that something is wrong.

"Olivia?" Barely offering a glance towards the kitchen area, where Don and Captain Price are still chatting over mugs of coffee, he comes closer and sits on the edge of the chair next to her, trying to see her face beneath her bowed head. "What's wrong?"

The panic is quickly setting into him, and it increases as she doesn't respond, but pushes the paper towards him. He takes it, scanning the letter quickly, and then doing as she did and reading again, slowly.

"Wow," he says under his breath, and looks at her again, a hint of confusion flashing in creases across his face, "this is good news."

"I can't take it." Her voice is low and soft with steel embedded through its core, and it's so her, so the Olivia of old when she was battling pain and coming out on top, letting no one in because she thought she needed no one, it aches.

"What do you mean? They're giving it to you. It's yours." He flicks a gaze across the paper again, certain he must be missing something. That her determination cannot be over what he understands. His slightly raised voice causes the voices coming from behind him to cease, and he knows without looking that they will be staring at Olivia as well.

"I didn't earn that money. They're only giving it to me out of pity."

"Not pity. It's sick pay, for every year you've been gone. It's exactly what you'd have gotten if we'd found you two days after you went missing and you couldn't work. But we didn't..."

Both captains come and stand behind Elliot's chair, where he's leaning towards her, and she sharply rises and spins away, turning to the window at the front of the house and looking out at the quiet neighbourhood before speaking.

"I wasn't sick. And I wasn't working. I don't deserve the money, whether One PP think I do or not." She turns her head at the last sentence, so she is staring at the carpet to her side and seeing nothing, as she talks to them without meeting their looks. Elliot has handed the paper over his shoulder to Don, who takes it in quickly as Elliot argues back.

"Liv, take it. It's not pity money, or even guilt money. It's their way of trying to look out for their own." He's insistent and indignant in his need for her to see the truth, but he knows even as he says the words that they don't make it through, instead hitting the barrier she has in place. Don walks round the chairs towards her.

"Olivia." And he waits, until finally she turns her body slightly, enough so that she can look at him over her shoulder. "We should have found you. And we didn't. This is the least you deserve for every cop who failed you. Including us," and he gestures behind him to Elliot, sitting on the chair, and Captain Price who is nodding slowly.

"You didn't fail me." Her voice is husky now, as she holds back everything, but her eyes are dry and there is no quiver to her lips. "How could you have known where to look?"

Don offers the paper towards her, and keeps pushing until her fingers close slowly over it and it creases as she grips, crinkling under her white knuckles. "Please, take it. For me." As he says it, and plays his final card that he knows he shouldn't, he sees her shoulders sag in defeat. It's emotional blackmail, it's unfair to use against her in her present state, but he doesn't care.

It's not about the money, as such, but about what it means. About her taking time, and being free to heal. About her having the chance she deserves to get the best possible help. He knows, all too well, what it's like for victims to fight through it all while trying to work, while having to fight each second to live a normal life and keep a roof over their heads. Maybe he's selfish, and a hypocrite, but he doesn't want her to have to do that. Not Olivia...

"Okay," she whispers under her breath, and while everyone else sighs a relief, Don catches a glimpse of sadness in her eyes. They have pushed her into this. _It's for her own good_ rings through his head in sarcastic tones - he has heard in so many different situations over the years. He has told it to himself when he's had to be a captain instead of a friend. Now it weighs on him, that he has done it again.

When Olivia leaves the room and heads towards her bedroom, Captain Price follows, and when she reaches the door she raps lightly on it with the back of her knuckles, watching the woman sit on the edge of the bed. "May I speak with you for a second?" she asks, and is fully prepared for Olivia to deny her.

"Sure," Olivia says - with little conviction and no eye contact to break the monotone answer - but Captain Price goes in anyway. She has something she has to say.

"Olivia," and it's the first time she has used her first name rather than being formal, and it earns her the briefest glimpse into her eyes before Olivia drops them again. "CSI found your notebooks. And I've...well, I'm having to read them." The dark hair raises now, and Captain Price finds herself looking into a confused, almost fearful pair of brown, wide eyes. "I just wanted you to know that it was me doing so. And the contents of them will remain completely confidential, unless it relates to specific criminal acts, or the whereabouts of Hartman."

She doesn't know what she really means by the statement, because surely the whole contents relates to a crime. The crime of kidnapping, and holding against her will. The words, the sentences, all add colour to the black and white facts but there is something so personal within them that even she cannot bear the thought of a jury trawling through them, and analysing piece by piece what happened. If she finds anything vital, she will act, but so far it has only been the musings of a lost and lonely person, and in fact, the affirmation - so far anyway - that nothing has happened beyond the initial charges they seek to arrest Hartman on.

"I have to ask though. About the missing pages."

Olivia looks away, and if it was a perp or a suspect she was interviewing, she would count it as a distinct sign of guilt, but it's not. "Is there anything I should know about what was written on them? That would lead us to Hartman? Or about what happened to you?"

There is a long, long gap in between her question and Olivia's answer, and the professional in her knows there has to be some reason for their absence. Some reason the missing pages don't happen at the beginning but only occur as she has read further. That there is one whole notebook vanished, the timeline broken, and Olivia is looking away from her. The compassionate side of her, the human side of her says it doesn't matter. That she has been through enough.

"There's nothing. You wouldn't find him from any of it. They won't tell you anything. They were nothing. I just didn't want them any more."

The words are weaved with steel as they had been in the lounge, that tone that she recognises, despite not knowing this woman. That comes with all of the strong who battle against the odds, and grow weary with winning. It reminds her of the metal rope that holds up a bridge. That is sharp, thin lines against a sky, with a weight so immense beneath it. That could snap, but won't.

"Okay. I had to ask. I'm sorry," And she leaves Olivia then, to her thoughts.

Olivia is quiet for the rest of the day, and it makes Elliot and Don noisier for a while, to make up for her utter lack. It's not like she's made much noise before, she hasn't said much or done anything dramatic, but now there is the silence that tells them she's not really with them. She answers questions, responds and moves when she has to, but her thoughts are a million miles away and she seems less solid somehow. She floats, and both Don and Elliot find themselves clinging louder and harder in response, until she closes her eyes to each one of their attempts at conversation or jollity and escapes to bed early, leaving them looking at each other in fearful confusion.

""""""""""""""

The next morning, they find her flicking through the previous day's letting section of Don's paper, and she waits while they go through their morning routine of bickering over the sports section and Don cleaning up toast crumbs after Elliot when she pushes yet another list towards him.

He takes it, and stares unknowingly as she speaks. "That's what I want to keep from the apartment. All the rest can go. I need to find a new place." She's quiet, solid, and doesn't look at either of them as thoughts spin through their heads. Elliot wants to argue, its too soon, too sudden, they're only a few days into the New Year and now she wants to find some kind of normal, but he doesn't say anything.

"Are you sure?" Don asks, leaning against the counter and holding a mug of tea he had been just about to take a sip of when she had spoken. Slowly, inch by inch, his arm has been lowering it without his knowledge and now it's nowhere near his mouth.

"Yeah, I'm sure." Both men look at each other, knowing that tone, and having nothing to say against it. She stands up, and only flinches slightly when she hears noise from outside. "I'm fine. It's time I moved on."

Olivia leaves them standing still, and goes back to the guest bedroom she has become too comfortable, too accustomed to. It had been that morning, when she hadn't flinched in the darkness of the night as she heard Don go to the bathroom, that she knew she couldn't stay here. Or this is where she would always be. Already she loses the fight to step outside, and lets the noises of another outside world, another life drift past her while she stays within the safety of four walls. It's too easy to stay. Perhaps, back in the city, she can find herself again.

Elliot takes her into the city, to the bank, where her muscles scream through her whole meeting and she noticeably jumps at every slammed door as they accept she is who she says she is, and activate her account again. As soon as they are done, they flee back to Don's again, and Elliot knows she won't be able to look for a place. She is not strong enough. She shook for an hour after they made it indoors.

Instead, he gets details that she looks through, chooses a short-list, and Elliot takes John and Rebecca with him to look at them, while Don stays with her. Not baby-sitting her. None of them will admit to that.

They settle on a quiet third floor apartment on the Upper East Side, across the park from her previous neighbourhood. In distance it's slim, a breeze through trees away from who she used to be, but the people are different, and so are the stores and the streets and the side of Manhattan. There is light in the rooms, and he hopes it's what she needs.

Olivia signs the lease without seeing it, or caring. Elliot and Don tell her things: that the belongings she wants have been moved in, and is she sure she wants nothing else, and a hundred and one different words that don't matter. She responds to the ones they push at her the hardest, and the rest dissipate into nothing when she doesn't answer.

"""""""""""""""

This morning there has been no new snowfall for a few days and the path from Don's front door is clear as he puts her bag in the car, and she stands looking at him, with Don next to her. She hasn't stepped out, has kept saying silent goodbyes until Elliot gets back to the door and Don wraps her in a quick, fierce hug.

"Call me. I'll come by in a couple days. And you're welcome here, any time. You know that." He waits until she nods before he lets go of her shoulders and she turns to face the outside world. She follows Elliot's back, watching as his hairline brushes against the dark fabric of his collar, and only blinks when he stops and opens the door for her. When he shuts it behind her, she looks at nothing, and wonders if car doors is something she can't do for herself now. So far, everyone opens them for her.

Elliot is worried, as they drive back into the city. She is as unresponsive as she had been on the way out, though he thinks she would talk, if he forced the issue. He won't. Fin came round the previous day - with his partner - to tell her that they have nothing new on where Hartman might be, and that the Feds will keep looking but the squad are scaling back their involvement until something new happens. She acknowledged them, and their news, in the same way she has been since she decided to leave Don's. There is a low tiredness that scrapes against her aims of a new start and reminds Elliot, so clearly, of all the moments in the squad room when things went wrong, and she went quiet to hold herself in.

The street is quiet, as quiet as the city ever is, and she doesn't properly look at the building before she gets out of the car and walks towards it, where the doorman opens it with eyes that flash in recognition of Elliot, not her. He is the right age for a doorman, mature with the beginnings of grey hair, and as she passes him he nods to her and she thinks how pointless he is. _Not big or strong enough to stop someone, if they forced themselves in. _But they all mean well, they're looking out for her, and even trapped in her glass box, she can recognise it.

The door to the apartment, _her apartment_ she reminds herself, has a newly installed deadbolt as well, but still she forces her muscles to stay relaxed as Elliot opens both locks and steps inside. When she follows him, it requires the same force to not look behind the door as it closes. Instead, she makes herself look at the apartment.

He had thought it had looked bare when he had finished with sorting the furniture and making sure she had everything she needed, but he has kept what she asked for and nothing else. When he and Don had tried to ask her further questions, she'd simply faded away, and they had resorted to asking Rebecca for help, who had picked out basic curtains, a rug for the floor, linen for the bed.

It had still looked stark, empty, but he remembered what Fin had said and their descriptions of where she had been and tries to see it through her eyes. In fact, he thinks with a wry smile, it is ten times better than his place had been, in those days when he had had one.

Now they're in and she walks slowly through the living area, glances briefly at the bedroom and bathroom, and remains for much longer at the window, arms wrapped round her. He is left standing, awkward in his place and role, and suddenly wishes he hadn't put away the groceries he had got for her beforehand. It would be something to do, now.

He makes coffee. It's his defence mechanism.

She takes it from him without moving and she's still looking, but to one side, like she doesn't want to be seen. He looks as well, and sees what he had seen when he looked round. A tree lined street. People. Buildings. He wonders what she sees.

It's later. A lot later, when he is sitting doing the crossword on her new kitchen counter and she has prowled the apartment and looked out of every window, that she speaks. She's back where she had started, and her voice surprises him. He hasn't heard it for hours, and it sounds alien in the silence.

"When I was a teenager, and things got bad..." she starts, and there is no emotion to any of her words, "I used to imagine being picked up, and put into a new life. Starting again, without any of my history mattering. Being able to cut everything off. A new life, a different person."

She hasn't looked at him, hasn't changed her gaze, and she's watching a kid dance down the street in front of his father as she hears Elliot flick his pen against the paper. The boy doesn't resemble her at all; she'd never do the things he does. He jumps cracks in the side-walk for a second and then stops and spins, laughs at his father who is carrying bags of groceries, and then sprints out of sight for a second before running back to the man again. He's nothing like she had been. Perhaps that's the point.

Watching her, he doesn't know what to say. Whether the new life is this one, coming back, or the previous one. "This is all going to take time, Liv. But you're the same person you were before. We've all changed. It's just going to take time."

When he gets no response after a minute, he goes back to the crossword. There are blank spaces and clues in front of him. He's only ever done them before while waiting and bored, in doctor's offices, waiting for the kids to be done at the dentist. Now, it seems important that he fills in all the gaps, while she stands and stares.

_Time – _she thinks._ How can he understand time? Know what it means?_ She watches until dusk begins to settle and she doesn't want to see shadows any more, and she makes toast because she's supposed to eat, and because she can. There is no one stopping her, and she makes it for Elliot as well, and the smile he gives her when she slides it in front of him almost feels like a start, at the end of a day.

""""""""""""""""

_Today he told me its been over three months since he took me. Those are the words he used 'I took you' and it's almost a surprise to remember I'm here against my will. I guess, since I tried to escape, it's been easier to make myself forget. Because I don't think I've ever been so scared. Not for so long anyway. When I hit him and he fell and I couldn't catch the door in time, and it took him so long to wake up again. I don't know how long, but it felt like an eternity._

_All I could think was how I was going to die of dehydration, of unquenched thirst. How I was going to fade away, and that's not how a cop is supposed to die. But I'd failed, I'd tried and I'd failed and he lay there with the code to the lock in his head and he looked dead. I've never been so scared. I won't try again._

_It doesn't feel like three months. Three days or three years maybe. I've watched summer go past the window, what little I can see, and I know I'll begin to feel Fall in the air soon. It's never been hot down here, but his hands and arms and face have been more tan each time he comes in. Some days I want the sun so bad, and others I walk round the patch like I don't want it to see me._

_I don't understand time here. Each minute feels so long and then I blink and a whole day has passed and he's bringing me dinner, that I eat because I haven't got anything else to do. I've read ten books since I've been down here. I don't think I've read that many in a year before. _

_If I let myself think of them, I miss them all so much it paralyses me and I have to lie still and not feel. He brought me an Ipod. Said he didn't know what music I liked so he'd put all sorts on it and I just had to let him know what I wanted on there. I don't care at the moment. I don't want to listen to anything from before. I turn it up so loud I only hear the music and nothing else. It helps. _

_How can three months have gone already. Fourteen weeks. I asked. Ninety-nine days today. Tomorrow will be a hundred days. I'm really tired today, but I don't know why. I don't do anything, five strides across, six strides towards the window. I was too tired today._

""""""""""""""""""

They're playing Uno now, in this apartment she doesn't feel comfortable in. Elliot is thrashing her. He's spent years playing against his kids, and they never had Uno in the basement. She wants to argue with him for doing it, but instead she watches the lines of his face and reads him like a book. There are moments he realises he is close to winning, and has to decide whether he's going to take the advantage, or let her off.

He doesn't know she sees all this, and she smiles inside. Maybe they haven't changed so much, after all. They could compete and compete, and then sometimes she'd let him win, and other times he'd let her. She surprises herself each time laughter trickles from her, as he begins to fill her in on years of stories, and he feels alive again. Alive and amazed that so much has happened that has been amusing, because if he'd been asked, he'd say he's been numb for all these years.

Olivia stretches at one a.m with her hands high above her head and yawns. "Guess I should go to bed," she says, and Elliot tries not to see the hint of something that hits her just after she drops her arms. It's a mixture of apprehension, fear and dread and when it touches her, he feels it as well. She stands up and goes towards the bedroom, where the bedside light guides her in. Elliot had flicked it on when he got up to go to the bathroom earlier. He hadn't wanted her to go into the dark, on her own.

When she reaches the door to the bedroom, he stands up and at the noise of his chair scraping sharply against the floor, she freezes against the light, her back turned to him. "Don't go." There is an unspoken word at the end, a please she will not admit, and he goes to sit on her couch and turns the TV on.

"Wasn't going to."

She curls into her bed, her old bed with new sheets and covers, and she hasn't shut the door so she can faintly hear the tinny sound of the TV and see the dancing light coming in. She can turn her own light off, as long as that is there.

_Wish I were with you but I couldn't stay. Every direction leads me away._

With her eyes closed, and the sounds of him filtering through, she can hear lyrics in her head, of the song she played whenever she wanted to think of him. And, for a moment, in this strange building with weird noises that make her tense, she can relax, and just listen. Perhaps she's hearing him, and perhaps she's hearing other sounds of the life that she misses, so so much. But its always been mixed up in her head, even then, in that dark. He's always been there.

_Pray for tomorrow but for today. And all I want is to be home._

_

* * *

**A/N - The lyrics at the end are from "Home - by Foo Fighters" It's a gorgeous song. Go listen on youtube or something :)**_


End file.
